


lunchbox

by sicktastic



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Bullying, Character Development, Drug Use, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Fluff, Explicit Language, Growing Up Together, Hoeing, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Like extreme Slow Burn, M/M, Miscommunication, Original Characters - Freeform, Richie is a bully, Sexual Themes, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, alcohol use, also don't ask me why stan and mike aren't in this because I literally don't know, also i did bev wrong in this, an artist who hates art, but when it gets there it fucking gets there, gotta love the hoeing, implied depression, no pennywise, richie is also an artist, so updates are frequent, sorry girl it's nothing personal, this entire thing is already written btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-01-07 00:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 104,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18399680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicktastic/pseuds/sicktastic
Summary: Richie’s not a very nice kid.And Eddie knows that better than anyone.-Expert:Today is Eddie's last day of high school.If someone created a time machine and traveled through the intergalactic tunnel of space and time to Eddie’s last day of sixth grade and told his prepubescent self that this is how he’d finish off his high school career he’d probably be majorly confused.If they programmed it to go back to the last day of eighth grade and told his slightly less prepubescent self the same thing, he might be a little less confused.Nonetheless, telling a little boy that he’d end his senior year in love with the kid who tormented him for most of his life will indefinitely spark some confusion.But the Eddie from this day and age; the Eddie who is eighteen years old and has already lived through all of that, plus some, is not confused.He is not confused about his feelings for Richie.





	1. Eddie

**Author's Note:**

> Alright kids before you begin everyone should know that it was not my intention to write a fucking book but here we are. Originally this fic was supposed to be under 20k but I guess I was having too much fun because it's now close to 100k. That being said I've already written the whole thing so you can count on updates being consistent. 
> 
> This fic handles a lot of dark topics and I did my best to portray them as realistically as I could. If you are offended or find anything I've written distasteful, please message me so we can discuss the issue. It is definitely not my intention to make anyone feel bad or uncomfortable so please read with caution. 
> 
> In this fic, I've stepped away from the normal character traits you may be used to and I made the losers more my own. Obviously, they aren't mine, but if you're reading this thinking "he wouldn't do that," or "that isn't something she'd say" you're probably right. I'm a big fan of flaws so if you're looking for some fluff you're in the wrong place. 
> 
> Also since I've spent a lot of time on this fic, there is a possibility that I may change the character names and publish this on other websites. But if you do believe that someone is stealing my work then please let me know, otherwise, don't be alarmed. 
> 
> Feedback and discussion are immensely appreciated. All opinions and comments are important and always do my best to answer back in the most productive way I can. Thank you for reading!!

Part 1. 

Fourth Grade. 

When Eddie first saw his beloved neon green windbreaker, the one with the yellow stripe down the back, it was during the month of September. He and his mother had taken a trip over to the local department store to pick up a new toaster oven. It was the same day the store was putting out their new fall jackets. 

If it wasn’t for his mother’s generous mood, telling him to go ahead and chose any jacket he’d like, he never would have asked for one. He isn’t very assertive when it comes to his mother, and for good reason. It’s a waste of energy.

The jacket could probably be warmer, it could probably fit him better and have bigger pockets and a more quality zipper, but those are the sort of things eight-year-olds don’t care about. The jacket was cool and neon and green.

His mom hadn’t liked the jacket. It was clear in the frown she wore when Eddie slid the jacket off the hanger and held it out to her. 

She bought it for him anyway because when he put it on, he smiled, and something about that took a little of the strain out of her expression. 

Right now, he isn’t smiling. It’s cold and there’s a hole in his jacket. 

He unconsciously moves his hand downward and uses his fingers to stitch together the gap where all the cold is coming through. He looks around. 

His eyes land on a recess monitor. He watches her shout something and observes the condensation that puffs out around her lips, but he can’t hear her. Her words are lost in the obnoxious chatter of his classmates. 

He looks around again, this time taking the time to evaluate the situation and utilize some of those context clues he’d learned about during English class. He sees that nobody looks very happy, and that a couple kids are kicking pebbles with frowns on their faces. Meaning it’s most likely time to line up.

He finds his class, Mrs. Swatson’s - Classroom B, and stands behind a girl called Tracy. He stares at the back of Tracy’s head, and the longer he stares, the more apparent it becomes that Tracy does not know how to brush her hair. 

He looks around once more but he doesn’t see his friends anywhere. 

Someone’s staring at him.

-

During their snack break, Bill joins him on the floor. 

Eddie forgot his applesauce on the kitchen counter this morning so he takes the nature bar his teacher hands him. It’s got strawberry jam sandwiched between thick layers of some strange oatmeal texture. Eddie has a strong dislike for the taste of artificial strawberry, so ideally, he’d like to minimize the longevity of the strawberry taste in his mouth. He decides that his best bet is to shove large chunks of the nature bar to the very back of his throat and swallow them whole. This tactic does not work very well; he almost chokes. 

Bill’s staring at the hole in his jacket.

Eventually, Bill drops the bag of grapes he’s holding and leans over to loop a finger through the four-inch rip coming down Eddie’s pocket. “What happened?” he asks. 

“Snagged it on a tree.” Eddie says shortly, and he looks away because it is a lie. He’s always been a terrible liar. 

“It wasn’t like that this morning.” 

Eddie shrugs and takes another bite. His face flattens, and he decides to give up on the nature bar before the urge to throw up has a chat with his stomach. Bill’s still staring at him. 

His lie is a shitty one. He knows it and Bill knows it too. Bill knows a lot of things. He’s got an eye for that kind of stuff, stuff like the state of Eddie’s jacket in the mornings or how many trees are planted on school grounds, which happens to be zero.

Surprisingly, Bill doesn’t push, and it’s strange because Bill likes to push. Bill pops a few more grapes into his mouth and pretends to read the back of the Magic Treehouse book laying open a few feet away from them. 

Ben sits down next to Bill five minutes before break is over.

Eddie doesn’t miss how dim Ben looks, and how that dimness inhabits the roundness of his cheeks and the nice parts in his eyes. Eddie doesn’t pry. 

He offers Ben the other half of his nature bar and Eddie feels relief watching some of that sadness lift a little.

But food has often proven to be a bad coping mechanism and if Eddie has to guess, he’d say he and Ben are struggling with the same problem. 

-

When Eddie gets home, he goes to his bedroom and hides his jacket in the back of his closet. He stuffs it under a duffle bag and a couple hoodies. As he watches it disappear underneath a layer of his crap, he has the strong urge to cry. 

Eddie does not cry.

At dinner, his mother tells him about a new illness going around town. Phary-something. Eddie doesn’t remember. He doesn’t really care, either. He doesn’t need an illness to feel like shit.

His mom tells him to pack his own lunch for tomorrow; which is new. She claims that she’s just trying to give him a little responsibility, but he does not believe that’s how she truly feels; they both know she hates the idea of him and independence corresponding with one another. She is just being lazy.

When she leaves the kitchen, he scrambles over to the coat rack and grabs his lunchbox off of the second peg to the right. He opens it and empties today's leftovers into the trash, then he sets it down on the counter. His mother would be disappointed to know that he did not clean out the grim that’s started to collect in the bottom left corner. That is asking too much of an eight year old.

He haphazardly tosses in a shitty looking peanut butter sandwich and a few of the ho ho’s he stole from his mother’s nighttime snack stash. He clicks the lock into place and stares down at a poorly pixelated image of Spiderman swinging between two buildings. 

He too wishes that he could shoot webs from his wrists and wear a mask every day. 

He returns the lunchbox to the coat rack. 

-

Eddie is standing outside near the side of the school building doing absolutely nothing but staring at the sky when a something collides into his shoulder and causes him to stumble forward. 

He meets the wall with his palms, and the roughness of the bricks isn't very friendly with his skin. There are scrapes on his hands, little sediments of rock wrestled into the softer parts. He blinks a few times, then looks over to find Richie sneering. 

“What? No ugly jacket today?” his lips curl into a grin and in that very moment, Eddie wants to evaporate. He does not respond.

He stares at Richie with a careful stillness on his face that can only come from practice. There’s something about it that makes Richie hungry for more of a reaction. He steps forward and puffs out his chest, making himself appear a few inches taller. Something cold starts to pool in Eddie’s chest.

He doesn’t want Richie to see the way his skin goes pale or how every neuron in his body climbs to the very end of its wits trying to remind him how to breathe. But Richie watches him closely, and he takes another step forward. 

Eddie is sort of expecting Richie to hit him, and when Richie moves his arm, Eddie does his best not to flinch. 

The impact Eddie’s waiting for never comes; after a moment and a movement blur together, Richie’s palm lays flat on the brick a few inches to the right of Eddie’s head. 

Richie continues to stare at him, level and firm. His breath is heavy, Eddie can feel it on his cheeks. It’s a warm and unpleasant feeling.

He wants to fidget with his hands, but he knows that to move at all right now would not be a good idea. 

Eddie isn’t sure how much time passes, but it feels like a century.

Somewhere along the way Eddie’s impassiveness dissolves and he becomes far more transparent than he prefers himself to be. 

He really dislikes the way Richie’s looking at him right now, like he’s going to eat him.

At some point, Richie turns his gaze downward, then back up, then down again. He pushes away from the wall and sulks off. 

Eddie just watches him go. 

-

Ben gets a busted lip a few days later. Henry Bowers gave it to him. 

Unlike Eddie, Ben had retaliated and even though it had been an accident, Eddie still congratulated him.

Henry and his fist took on Ben’s face, and when Ben tried to pull away from the situation, he accidentally tripped into Henry with such a force that Henry had fallen backward. It was a good thing Victor Criss had there to break his fall. Henry and Ben were both suspended. 

Eddie didn’t think that was fair. No one did. Henry and his friends were well known for what they were, and so was Ben. 

They’re lounging around in Eddie’s room when Eddie catches his first glimpse of Ben’s swollen lip. He squints at him. 

“Makes you look like a hard ass.” Bill says. Eddie glares at him. 

“If my mom heard you talk like that she’d throw you out,” he warns. 

“Pff,” Bill scoffs, waving a hand of dismissal in Eddie’s direction, “she’s all the way downstairs.” 

“These walls are thin. I don’t get away with anything.” Eddie slumps against his bed frame. 

“Whatever.” Bill shakes his head. He looks over at Ben, who’s brushing his fingertips against his bottom lip.

“A hard ass, huh?” Ben says.

-

One day a couple weeks later, Jessica Davis asks Eddie if she can kiss him. Eddie decides he’ll give it a shot. 

There’s a day where it’s snowing, and the sky looks more white than blue, and that's when Jessica tells him to meet her underneath the yellow slide, the one sitting just off of the east playground. Eddie’s pleased with her choice of location. No one uses the east playground, it’s for first graders. 

She’s already tucked up underneath the main doc when he finally works up the nerve to go over. 

Eddie is scared that his own awkwardness will spoil the entire experience -- that is, until Jessica looks up and smiles at him. She looks the opposite of awkward (which Eddie thinks he embodies in that moment), very self-assured and it makes him feel better.

He gets on his hands and knees and crawls over to the open space Jessica leaves him. When they’re only a few inches apart, Eddie starts to feel as though someone has punched a hole through his chest. 

Jessica is as shy as she is comforting, and that make things easier for Eddie. They don’t talk, which is probably for the best. It’s quite possible that some of the chords in Eddie’s voice have gone missing.

He does his best to follow her lead -- when she grabs his shoulders, he finds her waist; when she leans in closer, so does he. When their lips touch, all the cold leaves his body. The kiss doesn’t last very long, a few seconds maybe, and after it’s over, Eddie isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel.

It’s clear that Jessica is excited. When they pull away from each other, she almost instantly springs up and rushes over to her friends to share with them just how soft Eddie’s mouth had been, and how he tasted like the juice box he’d had for lunch. Soon everyone will know what it’s like to kiss Eddie Kaspbrak, as if it were broadcasted on every single projector, in every single fourth-grade classroom. 

He doesn’t even have the chance to tell his friends himself. 

“Can’t believe you’re the first one of us to kiss a girl,” Bill says, looking kind of put off. 

“Do you feel like a man?” Ben asks. Eddie has to think about it, and he realizes that he doesn’t actually feel any different at all. 

-

A day later, he’s still hearing about his fiasco with Jessica. Apparently, they inspired some of their classmates. Apparently, the east playground is turning into quite the hot spot.

Eddie doesn’t think this will last very long, considering the teachers seemed to have already caught on.

He hasn’t talked to Jessica since, despite her attempts. He feels bad about silently rejecting her on the basis of nothing, but he isn’t that great at talking, and Jessica is a nice girl. He doesn’t want to hurt her feelings, he doesn’t know how to tell her she makes him feel weird. 

At the end of the school day, he’s standing outside huddled inside of a non cool and neon and green jacket, one that does a better job of keeping him warm. His gloves are pulled loosely over his hands, and he’s too preoccupied holding his lunchbox to fix them. It bugs him. 

He doesn’t see Richie creeping up behind him, so he’s startled when something knocks into him. He loses his footing for a moment and almost slips into a patch of snow. He saves himself at the last second.

His head snaps forward just as Richie walks into view. He’s smiling, but it looks mean. Angry, even. 

“Eds,” he greets through his teeth, “how goes it?” 

Eddie doesn’t respond, his stomach starts to churn. He looks down at his lunchbox. 

“Ignore me, whatever.” Richie's voice is edgy, his eyes narrowed. Eddie starts to send telepathic messages to Spider Man, asking him to swing down and save him.

“Heard you’ve been kissing Jessica Davis.” Richie’s tone twists from edgy to downright awful. Eddie doesn’t know what compels him to look up, but when he does, he wishes he didn’t. Richie’s brows are furrowed and his expression reads like a horror story. They stare at each other. 

“I don’t appreciate the silence.” Richie says as he steps forward. He then shoves Eddie’s chest with a force so mean that Eddie ends up on the ground, cradled by a mound of snow. He doesn’t even try to get up. Richie towers over him, his shadow swallowing Eddie whole. 

The sound of conversation carries over from the north exit. Richie takes this as his cue clear out, but not before crouching down to Eddie’s level and placing his hands on Eddie’s lunch box. He starts to tug it out of Eddie’s grasp. Eddie just lets him. Richie smiles. 

“Cool lunchbox,” he says, studying it only after it’s securely pressed against his chest. “I love Spider Man.” 

After that, he leaves, and Eddie is left alone with snow seeping through his pants. 

He wishes he wouldn’t, but he starts to cry. 

-

Fifth Grade.

Eddie’s mother has never been much of a baker, he knows that, but this cake is on another level. He’s tempted to ask if she’s somehow mistaken a bag of manure for a bag of cocoa. 

He looks across the table to see that Ben’s excitement upon hearing the word ‘cake’ had vanished as soon as he brought the fork to his mouth. Eddie almost laughs at his expression. 

When his mother leaves the room, they quickly get up to put the cake where it belongs. In the trash. 

It makes Eddie wish he had a dog. In movies, there’s always a scene where the kids sneakily slide their plates underneath the table, where their dog, probably named Lucky, will lap up their leftovers. He smiles when he thinks about it.

He stops smiling when he remembers chocolate murders dogs. 

After they’re both done chugging a glass of milk, Ben races him down the hallway. Neither of them are very athletic. Eddie wins. 

When Eddie’s bedroom door is closed, Ben mentions that Henry Bowers is coming back to school tomorrow. 

Tomorrow’s a Monday and Mondays already suck, and this is the type of news that gives them such a horrible reputation. 

“I kinda thought he’d get a longer sentence.” Eddie says. Ben shrugs, his face is grey around the edges.

About two months ago. Henry set fire to his neighbor’s shed. When the police arrived with a firetruck and a fuck ton of questions, Henry admitted with a smile that he’d done it on a dare; however, he was alone and refused to name anyone. He'd been placed in a detention center.

Eddie’s heard a lot of rumors. Some people say it had been Betch Huggins who’d challenged him to do it, others say Victor Criss, but most seem to think it was Richie. Either way, Eddie doesn’t really care. What he does care about, is how pale Ben is looking.

“I feel like I’m about to be hit with a whole two months of pent-up anger.” Ben says looking half-way defeated. Eddie shakes his head. 

“Don’t think like that. It will be okay.” he says, though there isn’t a whole lot of conviction in his voice. That is probably because he knows that it is most likely a lie. It’s better to pretend, he thinks. 

-

The next day, Henry is at school, just like Ben said he would be. He’s sitting in his usual seat, but somehow his presence manages to take up the entirety of the room.

He’s talking into Richie’s ear and Eddie watches them whisper back and forth for a few short seconds before the fear of being caught makes him turn forward. He begins to wonder what they’re talking about. Probably the death of small animals. 

The day drags and Eddie just wants to go home. 

With Henry back at school, Ben carries around a cloud of tension. He’s hyper aware today, overtly watchful, analyzing everything to the extreme. There are a few times that Eddie catches him with shifting eyes, as if he’s plotting some kind of escape for when Henry finally pounces. 

The funny thing is, Henry hasn’t even glanced in Ben’s direction. 

It’s actually not that funny. 

“Maybe he’s coming up with some kind of a plan to-”

“You think too much.” Bill interrupts, because Ben is talking to fast. It makes it harder for them to understand him.

Bill’s probably too neutral about a lot of things. Not to say that he doesn’t care when his friends are being picked on, he does, but Bill’s a confident person and people usually don’t mess with confidence. People usually don’t mess with Bill. 

Bill always knows the right thing to say. He’s always had a tongue on him and over the years, he’s seemed to grow into his ability to talk. If someone were to push him, he'd know exactly what it would take to crack them open and polish the floor with all the little things that they didn't like about themselves. Eddie has seen him do it. 

Bill’s strong and stern and doesn’t tolerate much.

But sometimes, when it comes to situations like this, he just doesn’t get it. 

“Maybe he hasn’t looked at you because he isn’t thinking about you.” Bill suggests and Ben doesn’t argue with him, neither does Eddie. They don’t really have a reason to. 

-

Tuesday proves Bill was wrong. 

Henry staples a photo of Ben to the bulletin board in the front of the classroom. It was a picture taken during gym, showcasing Ben’s misery and pain as he struggled to run laps with the rest of his class.

There are a few comments and chuckles that rise from the back of the classroom before Bill stands up and stomps over to the board to rip the picture down. He crumbles it up and throws it into the trash can with a hard flick. His back is stiffened and his head is bowed. There’s something heating up in the back of his throat. Eddie can smell it burning. 

Bill turns to the back of the room, his eyes finding Henry’s. 

He starts to approach him just as their teacher, Mrs. Koreki, appears in the doorway.

When Bill is about a foot away from Ben’s desk, Ben reaches out and places a hand gingerly on his forearm. 

“It’s okay,” he says, soft enough to be a whisper.

At first it doesn’t look like Bill acknowledges that Ben’s said anything at all, his scowl is unwavering and seems to touch every corner of his face while his eyes refuse to break away from Henry’s, whose only response is a shit-eating grin.

Despite Bill’s body language, and his tendency to chew up and spit out boys like Henry Bowers, he listens to Ben, and after a minute of what looks like an internal debate, he quietly goes back to his seat. Nothing about his return is smooth, it’s all rigid and sharp, like if anyone so much as breaths, he’d flip around and attack.

Eddie glances back once more, looking for Henry. Instead, he finds Richie staring at him. 

-

Gym class is a nightmare. 

On Tuesday, Coach Tyde breaks his tibia in a self-defense match against an unruly elevator door. This means Mr. Yen, a math tutor with little to no knowledge of anything that has to do with physical activity, is filling in for him. 

Being the chill guy he is, Mr. Yen decides to ask a few students for usual protocol instead of reading the instructions Mr. Tyde had left him. This is his first mistake. 

His second had been asking Teddy Jean. Every word out of Teddy’s mouth has something to do with baseball, he’s possibly more dedicated to the sport than most professionals, and it doesn’t help that Mr. Yen is the type of guy who doesn’t take a whole lot of convincing. After a short two minute conversation, everyone begins to set up the bases, and Eddie starts to panic. 

He hates playing on teams. These are the games that generally end with him missing the winning shot or tripping and injuring the star player. It’s no secret that he’s got unusually bad hand/eye coordination, or that his first instinct isn't to catch what's being thrown at him -- it’s to run away from it. He’s usually picked last, except for the one time when he was picked second to last. 

Everyone starts to line up, and he’d rather sit in the corner and stare at a wall. 

He gets in line to bat. 

Considering they’re in the fifth grade, no one puts much emphasis on the rules, except for Teddy, who is screaming foul! every four seconds because he thinks his umpire calls mean something. Eddie understands the basics of the game: swing the bat as best as you can, and if you happen to hit the ball -- run. 

Every time someone new is up to bat, Eddie’s stomach sinks lower and lower. The line in front of him shortens until there are only two kids standing between him and home base. He didn’t think his gut could ever feel so empty. 

Eddie’s eating his lower lip when Betty Herburger turns around and tells him good luck. She steps up to the silicone plate, her stance reminding Eddie of a real batter, one with credence and strategy. 

On her second swing, Betty cracks the ball so hard Eddie swears it splits down the middle. He watches it sail through the air and disappear into the bleachers. An echoing thud bounces off the walls. A kid named Kyle zags up to the top of the bleachers and tosses the ball back down to the pitcher. 

Everyone starts to scream, and the smile that stretches across Betty’s face is one Eddie’s never gotten to wear before. She runs the diamond before tapping back at home and high-fiving a couple of the boys that rush up to her with their palms up. 

Shit, Eddie thinks. How is he supposed to follow that up?

Slowly, he sulks up to the pentagon and centers it between the inside of his soles. With fleeting confidence, Eddie tries to mimic the way Betty had held herself, elbows bent and knuckles hardened. He positions the bat behind his head and when he looks forward, toward the pitcher, Richie’s staring back at him with one of those evil grins.

Oh no.

Eddie doesn’t have time to think anything else before Richie yanks his arm back, hurtling the ball toward him at a violent velocity. A second later, it’s safely tucked into the catcher's glove. Eddie doesn’t understand what just happened, he doesn’t remember blinking.

Seconds later the catcher stands up and tosses the ball in Richie’s direction. Richie swiftly lifts his arm, and the ball finds his glove with ease. 

Eddie breathes. It’s fine he tells himself, and then wills his focus on the ball curled up under Richie’s fingers; however, the look on Richie’s face ends up distracting him. His heart leaps up in between his ribs and stays there until the ball is rocketing towards him, nailing him directly in the thigh. 

It hurts -- god -- does it hurt, and Eddie’s face probably shows it. 

The few seconds it takes for him to regain his composure is enough time to reach down into himself and pull out an ounce or two of anger. He stares at Richie through blurred vision and finds the expression on Richie’s face warped with sick satisfaction. 

Eddie wants more than anything to run over and beat him to death with the bat in his hands. He does not do that.

He throws the bat on the floor and refrains from limping his way toward the exit. He forces himself to walk solidly. He flushes any hint of pain from his features and replaces it with an un-calculated amount of anger. He pushes the doors with a vexed shove and walks into the hallway. 

Once alone, he lets go of that toughness and bends down to rub the part of his thigh that hurts the most. The pain is dulled now, but his humiliation is still as fresh as ever.

He thinks about killing Richie in about a million and one different ways before Bill finds him kicking some steam into the bottom of the water fountain.

“Mr. Yen took him out of the game,” he explains like it’s supposed to comfort Eddie. 

“Oh great, I bet he’s devastated,” Eddie says dryly. 

“Are you okay?” Bill asks, his eyes drop to down to Eddie’s leg. 

“Yeah,” he sighs, anxiously itching the back of his neck, “it’s just getting really old.” 

“I’m gonna say something.” 

“That will just make it worse.” 

Bill doesn’t argue because he knows that’s probably true. Silence fills the air around them, and Eddie starts to fear that Bill can hear the irregular beating of his heart. 

“You know it won’t last forever.” Bill says. It's his attempt to make Eddie feel better, so Eddie doesn’t disagree.

Somewhere deep down, he knows it has to be true.

-

Mrs. Korieki isn’t very gifted in the arts. That becomes apparent after the levvi passes and they shove art into the curriculum, for a minimum of fifty minutes a week. 

The school’s part in this should be to hire an art teacher and construct an actual art class, but Eddie’s school is funded by student lunch money, so there isn’t much wiggle room in the budget. 

Bill, Ben and Eddie push their desks into a triangle so they can interact as they work. The concept of the project is cool, but there seems to be a lack of prodigy in the class.

They’re making clay owls. Mrs. Korieki likes owls and she says she wants some wall decor for the room.

Compared to the rest of the class, Eddie thinks his is coming out fairly decent, most likely because of his previous experience in the art of sculpting. 

His mother had been in a book club a few years back. One with a nice little corner table where a bunch of bored children were forced to sit and keep quiet. The club met twice a week and eventually, these wine-mom children had to develop different ways to keep themselves out of boredom’s grip of death. One of the mom’s owned a ceramics shop and surprisingly, fucking around with clay made the time pass faster.

Eddie’s already got his owl painted and glazed and he’s feeling pretty good about it, but when he looks over at Ben, he sees the guy is even farther along than he is. 

And then there’s Bill, who’s slacking. He’s still working with wet clay, trying to perfect the shape of his owl. Four times, he’d balled it up and restarted. Bill’s got this perfectionism thing that’s hard for him to kick.

“Oh.” Ben says aloud, he lifts up his left hand and squints at it. When he tries to pull his fingers apart, they stay together as if he hadn’t moved his hand at all. He’s glued his fingers together. 

Eddie starts to laugh, and Ben starts to panic. 

“Glue shouldn’t be this strong, should it?” he says looking back and forth like he’s waiting for Mrs. Koreki to come over and detach his fingers for him.

As Ben starts to wave her over, the door creaks open, and Richie walks in. Eddie’s heart slumps. He had thought Richie was going to be absent for the day.

Eddie’s gaze flickers from Richie, to his owl, then back to Richie again. Richie inches closer, and Eddie notices the light wash of purple dusted across his cheek. He wonders how on earth the idiot managed to punch himself in the face. 

Richie doesn’t look very happy today, and that makes Eddie kind of nervous. He sinks into his seat even lower, as if it would make him less visible. Richie doesn’t even glance in his direction. 

Richie heads to the back of the room, walking past his seat and ignoring his friends. He finds an empty corner desk to drop down into and then lays his head down. He buries his face into the crook of his elbow. 

Eddie doesn’t want to think about how weird that is. He doesn’t want to think about Richie at all.

He focuses his energy to maintaining a steady grip on his paintbrush and sweeping a silver metallic varnish over the owl's talons. It turns out looking even cooler than he thought it would.

When he glances over at Bill, he finds that Bill is looking about ready to put a fist through his desk.

“Bill, it doesn’t matter if it’s perfect. We all know you’re not an artist.” 

“Shut up,” Bill snaps. 

Eddie hadn’t even noticed that Ben had left the room until he’s returned to his seat with a glue-free hand. He smiles and sits down. 

“I think I’m done here.” he says, and when Eddie leans over to take a look at Ben’s creation, a laugh slides up his throat. He chokes it down but ends up with this weird snorted breathy sound that makes Ben look at him. 

“What?” 

“Nothing, it looks great.” Eddie feels kind of like asshole, and he definitely is not an artist, but Ben’s owl is some next level shit. It has three ridiculously huge feathers fanning out from under its beak and some major brain damage from where Ben’s fist had been resting on its head when it was still soft. 

“Okay I know he’s a little funny looking but it gives him character.” Ben says with very little defense, his expression light. He lifts the owl up by the string attached to the sides of its head and marvels at it. He grins wider, “I love him.” 

“That’s all that matters,” Eddie says stuffing back another laugh. 

Suddenly Mrs. Korieki walks past their desks and makes her way towards the corner of the room where Richie’s sitting. Eddie gets caught up watching her, and finds himself staring while she crouches down in front of Richie’s desk. He hasn’t moved an inch since he sat down ten minutes ago. Mrs. Korieki puts a light hand on his forearm. Startled, he jumps a bit, then lifts his head. 

Mrs. Korieki speaks softly, Eddie can tell by the gentleness in her features and how slow her lips are moving. Richie doesn’t look very responsive, but she gets him to his feet anyways and leads him into the hallway. Eddie’s gaze trails behind them until the door’s closed and there’s nothing else to look at. 

“What do you think that’s all about?” Ben asks, noticing Eddie’s distraction. All Eddie can come up with is a shrug. 

-

Eddie’s mom is picking him up from school when he catches Richie watching him from about a yard away. He’s sitting in the little memorial circle just outside the library, his expression so unfamiliar Eddie hardly recognizes him. 

His eyes are sunken in and his lips are pinched into a thin line. Nothing about his features quirk, even after he realizes Eddie’s staring back at him.

They make eye contact and maintain it for a series of seconds that feel just as long as minutes. It almost does something to Eddie. 

It almost makes him angry. 

Why is Richie looking at him like that? 

Boys like Richie are not allowed to be sad, not when they make other people feel bad, not when Richie makes Eddie feel bad. 

Eddie looks away with a sharp jerk of his head and centers his attention elsewhere. He doesn’t want to think about Richie’s face and how long and drawn and tired it looks. He just doesn’t want to think about it.

Richie is a bully and Richie is evil. Richie has tormented Eddie for a long time. Richie does not deserve pity, he does not deserve understanding, he does not deserve forgiveness. 

He makes Eddie feel so bad.


	2. Eddie

Sixth Grade. 

Eddie’s mother stare lasers through any shred of hope he had been holding onto. Singed, blackened and steaming, his hope lies on the floor in front of him. He makes no attempt to salvage it. 

“Unbelievable,” she boasts as if the mere thought of Eddie participating in any kind of normal sixth grade activity is the worst thing that’s ever crossed her mind. Eddie hadn’t even bothered putting the info-packet into his bag, he’d left it in his locker. He knows his mother well enough.

His history class is going down to Augusta and everytime Mr. Turner talks about it, he smiles so large that his cheeks go red. It’s an hour long trip and the buses have TVs; Eddie’s never been on a bus with a TV before. He doesn’t think he ever will. 

“How are they supposed to keep track of all those children? No parent in their right mind would-” 

“Mom, we’re twelve.” Eddie states flatly. Her eyes bug and Eddie regrets opening his mouth. 

“Twelve is nothing, you are a child. Mind your mouth.” She snaps. Eddie watches the pudge under her chin move as she speaks. 

He says nothing in return, and her glare is so sharp that it feels like he’s being poked in the forehead. He needs to escape. 

Eddie leaves a few pieces of potato and half a serving of rice on his plate. He knows before his mother drops it into the sink she’ll eat the rest of it. He leaves his plate on the table and pushes in his chair. He does his best to quietly make his way to his room.

He closes the door behind him despite his mother’s recent complaints. Apparently she doesn’t like closed doors any more.

Sometimes he has trouble understanding her. He’s nearing the age of independence and because of that he’d thought that maybe she’d knock down a few walls. But really, it's as if she’s added a couple more made of bricks. 

At Eddie’s core, he knows it’s because she doesn’t want him to abandon her.

He finds his laptop underneath his comforter and he doesn’t ever mean to, but he always ends up falling asleep next to it. Sometimes he has dreams about rolling over and crushing it in his sleep. 

His mother had been very against him owning a computer. But books are a thing of the past and his school tries to stay as up to date as possible. It was one of the only times his mom ate her disagreement and said ‘it is what it is.’

He switches it on and stretches his arms over his head as he waits for it boot up. He logs into his account and there’s little yellow circle just above his inbox, telling him he has a message. 

Madison Wafer is in bold across his screen. He stares at the letters of her name until his mind spirals and he starts questioning the history behind the English language. He opens the message. 

‘Hey, I know this is a little last minute but I wanted to ask if you had a date to dance this saturday?’ 

Oh. He really wasn’t expecting that. 

He and Madison have shared a couple of conversations in math class, but they are always about math. Eddie never thought she saw him as anything other than a human calculator. 

He doesn’t reply right away. He opens a few different tabs and tries to distract himself with a bit of mindless scrolling and a couple articles about mysterious washed up sea creatures. He even starts his essay for English, and that isn’t due for another week. But at some point, he circles back to Madison’s message. 

‘No, I don’t.’ is all he says. He instantly regrets it. He should have put more heart into it. He sure as hell gave it enough thought.

He anxiously waits for a reply, hopping from tab to tab until the little messenger icon pops up again. Unlike himself, it doesn’t take her an entire hour to come up with a three word response. 

‘Go with me?’ 

‘Yeah that sounds awesome!’ 

He regrets that one even more than the first. He sounds like a fucking idiot. 

‘Cool, we can talk more tomorrow in math.’ 

‘Looking forward to it.’ 

Is that considered flirting? Eddie has no idea. What he does know, is that his heart is punching his ribs in an uncomfortable way and he feels very overheated. 

Another message pops up in the same tab, so he clicks on it expecting to see Madison’s name again. He’s floored to see Noah Henshaw in its place. 

He blinks a couple times, as if his eyes were lying to him, but the name Noah Henshaw doesn’t disappear. Now he’s sweating. 

He almost closes his computer and calls it an early night but his sensibility pushes him to open the message. Fucking sensibility. 

‘Hey, I know we haven’t talked in a while but I just wanted to see how you’re doing.’

If Madison’s message surprised him, then this one has him jaw slacked. He really didn’t think Noah was going to speak to him again. 

Eddie types out a hundred different responses and deletes them all. He doesn’t know what to say to Noah. An apology would probably be appreciated. But would that be too random? Does Noah even care anymore? If he didn’t, would he even be messaging Eddie right now?

In the end he decides to skip the apology. 

‘Hey !! other than my mothers tendency to eat my youth, I’m doing pretty well, yourself?’

He and Noah have naturally always just clicked. Their conversations flow effortlessly, and they have a way of making Eddie’s chest feel lighter even in the heaviest days. Except for right now. Right now his chest is full of lead. 

‘She still need a uhaul to get to the grocery store?’  
‘And I’ve been better. My mom’s sick again.’ 

The first half of his message doesn’t match the second. Eddie feels something inside of him sink. He doesn’t reply to the joke, he doesn’t think it’s appropriate. 

‘I’m really sorry to hear that Noah.’ he says before sending a second message, ‘I’m sorry about everything.’ 

His stomach knots as he recalls the past few months. He’s made a lot of shitty choices and there’s a good amount of regret he feels. 

‘Yeah, i just really need a friend right now.’ a second later ‘just so you know you’re my last resort.’ 

Eddie really isn’t sure if that’s a joke or not, either way it doesn’t matter. 

‘I’m glad you can still think of me as a friend. I’m really sorry for making you feel bad. I hope you can understand that I was scared, that I’m still scared, and that I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.’ It’s a blurb but Eddie sends it anyways

‘I know you were scared, I’m scared too.’ 

Eddie is eating the inside of cheek and he has an overwhelming feeling to cry. Noah has all the reasons in the world to be scared; his mother could die, his father isn’t around, and now people look at him funny.

What Eddie feels must be nothing compared to what Noah does.

‘I wish things were different.’ 

‘Me too.’ 

-

The next day, school is hazy and every hue outside is grey. Overall, the day is wet and cold and strange. Very strange. 

Noah looks at him when they’re sitting in English. Eddie can’t stop thinking about it.

In Math, Madison tells him that her dress is red and shows him a picture so that he can color match his tie. He’s starting to wish he never responded. 

In the hallway, a few minutes before eighth period, a boy named Rod trips him.

On the way to the floor, he thinks about all the things in his life that would be different if he wasn’t such a small little bitch. 

His knee gets pretty banged up, like someone dug the back of a hammer into it. He sits up slowly, making sure to stay close to the floor. A defense tactic he’s learned over the years. Usually, if you don’t stand up, they don’t come for you again.

The weather must have really put Rod in a shitty mood. 

Rod closes the space between Eddie and himself to drill his heel into Eddie’s side. Eddie’s so startled by the second attack that he’s barely able to register all the pain that squeezes its way up through his hip. He’s forced down again, his palms flat on the grime-covered floor, his cheek hovering just above it. He thinks about what his mother would say if she were to ever see him in a position like this. 

This time he doesn’t move at all. He closes his eyes and shoots a quick prayer up to God, asking for Rod to be run over by a bus.

He waits for the laughter to trickle into silence, and for Rod and all his friends to grow bored of his unexciting reaction. That doesn’t happen.

Rod bends down and fishes around for the back of Eddie’s shirt. Just as he starts to pull Eddie up, he stops.

“Hey, fuck off.” The voice is a few tones familiar and it doesn’t take long for Eddie to place it. Rod releases him and the growing inch between Eddie and the floor vanishes. He meets it for the third time today.

Regardless of every instinct in his body telling him not to, he looks up.

He catches Rod standing up straighter and rolling his shoulders back. Rod turns his head to the left and about two feet away from him, is Richie.

Richie’s got his arms crossed over his chest and the way he’s standing makes him look so grounded it’s as if he’s got roots coming out the bottom of his feet. From the floor Eddie can see him circling his thumb over the skin underneath his forearm. 

Rod looks just as confused as Eddie feels. There’s especially something in his eyes that pathetically punctuates his puzzlement. He opens his mouth.

“You want in on this?” he asks, uncertainty creeping into his words. The tule in Richie’s stare only thickens. 

“What I want is for you to fuck off.” Richie says lowly. His tone sounds dangerous but Rod doesn’t cower. His confusion clears quickly and in its place is the heat of defensive. 

“Are you actually sticking up for this loser?” Rod questions. He colors his voice a shade darker and tries to match Richie’s unyielding exterior. 

But the thing is, Richie’s name lays on the tongue a bit differently than Rod’s does. There’s a certain idea behind Richie’s name, a certain image of clout and misconduct that people think about when they think about Richie. And there’s a reason for that, why Richie’s name is so vivid and bold. It’s the same reason why Rod’s friends have dwindled to the outskirts of the hallway; their laughs now quiet, their faces still. Unlike Rod, they can recognize the menace that’s rearranging itself in Richie’s features. 

Physically, Richie scales a few inches taller than Rod. His shoulders are broader and his stare is heavier. But as Rod’s scowl remains unwavering, those few inches seem to swell into an entire foot. Rod’s in a bulldog crouch and owning up to an ego that seems to beat any ounce of logic he may have.

“Don’t touch him, okay?” Richie states firmly, like he’s defending his territory, like he owns Eddie, like he owns this entire hallway and everyone in it.

“I can do what I want.” Rod responds and if Eddie had thought Richie looked rigid before, the word needs to be redefined. Every soft edge Richie may have had instantly goes jagged, leaving no cushion for remission. Rod sees the change, it shows in his face. 

Richie moves so fast that Rod doesn’t even have time to think about it.

Richie puts a hand on the back of Rod’s neck and pushes his face into a locker. Even from the floor, Eddie can see how hard Richie’s thumb and index finger are pressing into the skin on the back of Rod’s neck. It’s hard enough to leave marks. Richie holds him there for the longest time before he leans in, his cheek brushing up against Rods. Eddie’s probably the only one, besides Rod, who hears him say,

“Don’t touch him,” he breathes it into Rod’s ear, “Do you understand?” His words are venomous and they slip down Eddie’s spine uneasily.

Rod’s mouth is too compressed against the metal of the locker for him to speak, he even struggles to nod his head. 

For a few seconds, Richie squeezes his neck even tighter, and then all at once, he lets go and takes a step back. 

Rod has the indentation of the locker vent stamped into his left cheek and marks of humiliation scribbled over any speck of confidence he may have gathered during his twelve years of living. Rod keeps his eyes cast downward. He does not even tempt a glance in Eddie’s direction. He takes off down the hallway

Eddie knows exactly how Rod’s feeling. 

Being the subject of Richie’s abuse for as long as he has, he gets it.

He’s never seen it from this perspective.

Richie reaches down and pulls him up by his arm. 

Staggered, he complies and rises to his feet. Richie stands in front of him, looking down into his face. It makes Eddie feels extremely small. He peers up at him. 

Richie doesn’t deserve a thank you. Not a million years of top-notch bodyguard security could undo the damage he’s inflicted on Eddie’s self-esteem. Knowing this, he still says,

“Thanks?”

It comes out confused, because Eddie is confused.

Richie looks at him as if he hadn’t just gone full werewolf a minute ago. All his anger seems to have seeped back into the creases of his face, like it had never even been there. In its place, there is nothingness. Eddie has no idea what he’s thinking.

“Don’t thank me,” he says and then walks away. 

-

“Is it true?” Ben asks him the next day, “did Richie actually save you?” 

Eddie doesn’t know how to respond to that. Yes, is technically the correct answer, but that doesn’t seem very real. Richie saving him? He must have dreamed it. 

“Uh…” he stalls. His mind bulldozers hurtle after hurtle trying to come up with some kind of response. “Yeah,” he says eventually, “it was really weird.” 

Ben stares at him like he’s expecting more of an explanation. Unfortunately, Eddie knows absolutely nothing. 

“Well, what happened?”

Eddie tells him what he does know. He tells him how he had watched from the floor, unable to move, and about the red marks on the back of Rod’s neck and the way Richie had looked at Eddie, like he was a piece of valuable property. 

Talking about it causes him to re-feel the sensation of Richie’s stare and makes him question a lot of things. 

-

Kindergarten.

Eddie’s mother doesn’t like the idea of waking up at 7am to get her son to school. She’s made a habit of sleeping in until around ten, or least until she’s awoken by small hands grabbing at her nightgown and the same old spin of insistent whining. 

So, learning that she has the option of enrolling Eddie in afternoon classes is some of the most wonderful news she’s ever heard. She even thinks about buying his teacher a candle just for the hell of it. 

Eddie is small; smaller than most of the children in his class. This makes his mother nervous. On his first day, she straps him up in a backpack too big and a jacket too warm and walks him down the hall to the very last classroom on the right. She watches him line up against the wall before she says her goodbyes and kisses him on the cheek. 

Eddie assumes that she had left after that, but she only trails out sight to hang around until she personally sees him enter the room safely. 

Eddie actually likes kindergarten. It’s easy going and fun and every kid he talks to never has anything bad to say. Their days spent sat on the carpet listening to Mrs. Burt read Mercy Watson books are probably his favorites. He usually resides in the corner of the room with a girl called Alice. He and Alice like to act out whatever situation Mercy gets himself into. Alice always insists on playing Mercy, but that doesn’t matter to Eddie. He’s thinks his Mr. Watson imitation is pretty convincing. 

Occasionally they get Emily Rition to play Mrs. Watson, but only after bribing her with cookies. And to be honest, Emily is a lousy actress and Eddie doesn’t like sharing his cookies. 

On the third day of school, Eddie lines up behind Alice, who turns her back to him. She giggles over something a boy called Jeffrey says. 

Eddie does not like being ignored. He wheels around so that his back is pressed up against the wall and he sighs. Across from him, he watches the morning class exit Mrs. Burt’s classroom and assemble into a line along the opposing wall. 

To Eddie, the morning kids appear to be more rowdy and obnoxious than his own afternoon class. They laugh loudly and talk without any manners. Eddie witnesses Mrs. Burt reprimand a few of them. She never has to do that with his class. 

Eddie probably observes every single kid in that line, working his way down from the front to the end. 

There are only a few quiet ones who are either staring at their shoes or sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall, like Eddie. When Eddie gets to the point of the line that’s directly in front of him, he finds that there is someone already staring at him. 

The boy’s hair is buzzed at the sides, but just long enough to hint that he’s got curls. His eyes are dark and his shirt is green and there’s a bruise wrapping all the way around his wrist. 

He shamelessly scans Eddie up and down, not a trace of expression found anywhere on his face.

He’s compelled to look away and at some point, he does. 

Eddie doesn’t think about it again until the next day when he’s standing in the same spot and he has this strange feeling that makes him stop his conversation with Alice to turn his head. The kid’s staring at him again with that same wooden look. Eddie doesn’t know why this boy is burning holes into him or why something about it makes Eddie feel the way he does. He doesn’t understand. He’s only five. 

The staring and the silence goes on for the rest of the year. Eddie should be able to break it up, crush the weirdness with a word as simple as, “hi.” But he never does. 

On the last day of kindergarten, it’s one of those rare days where Eddie’s the one who looks first. When the boy finally gazes over, something pools through Eddie that makes him smile. He doesn’t think it’s shock that passes through the boys expression, but it’s something new, something other than nothing. He doesn’t smile back, he doesn’t really respond at all, at least not intentionally, and all Eddie gets is that minimal quirk in the boy's features. Eddie doesn’t stop smiling though; in fact, he adds a small wave, leaning into this spark of confidence, searching for more of a reaction. 

The boy reverts back into his empty way of looking. 

-

First grade. 

Eddie gets a new Spider Man lunch box this year. This is how he knows the year will be good. 

The first day, his mother lets him walk to his classroom alone. This is a very big milestone for them both. 

He feels grown up, entering the room on his own. Knowing he had the option to do so. He could have taken off down the hallway and busted through the doors and run all the way to the park or something, but he didn’t, he decided to be here. 

His teacher stuck index cards with their names onto the corners of the tables. Eddie finds his towards the back of the room. 

After he sits down, he looks at the blackboard where Mrs. Stats is sketched out in large multi-colored block letters. 

Approximately a minute later, a woman Rddie can only assume is Mrs. Stats, is standing in front of the room telling them to stand up and push in their chairs. She encourages them to introduce themselves to the person to their left. 

Eddie stands, pushes in his chair and looks to the left. The space is empty. He peers down at the note card next to his and finds the name ‘Richie’ scribbled across it. The name is written more sloppily than Eddie’s is, darker too, like Mrs. Stats’s motivation had dissolved after printing however many names.

Eddie feels a little awkward, watching his classmates befriend each other while stuck in a limbo of nothingness. He looks around the room for a familiar face and spots Alice a few tables ahead of him. He wishes they’d been sat together. 

Suddenly, someone taps his shoulder. He turns his head to the right and finds a tall boy with red hair smiling at him. 

“I’m Bill.” He says. The name Bill has always made him think about ducks. ”And you’re Eddie.” Bill declares, pointing at the index card with Eddie’s name on it. 

Eddie nods and says, “Nice to meet you.” It’s a little wobbly, but Bill doesn’t stop grinning. 

“I like your shirt.” Bill says. His eyes drop down to Eddie’s chest to admire his shirt. Eddie looks down too, momentarily forgetting which shirt his mother had picked out for him this morning. It’s the one with the dinosaur. 

“Thanks, my mom bought it.” 

“My mom bought my shirt too!” Bill exclaims, as if everyone in the room's mom hadn’t bought their shirt. 

Eddie smiles. A second later he senses movement to his left and when he glances over, there’s a boy sitting in the same chair that had been empty just a minute ago. Eddie doesn’t realize it at first, but it’s the boy from the morning class. 

“Richie.” Eddie finds himself saying. Richie looks over at him, a coolness spread throughout his expression. He doesn’t look very surprised to see Eddie. 

Richie stares at him and Eddie wonders if that’s all he’s ever going to do. 

Suddenly, he says, “Eddie,” and the seal between them comes undone. 

Eddie smiles, Richie doesn’t. 

After that, Richie turns forward and doesn’t say anything for the rest of the day. 

Two days later, they have their first conversation. 

Eddie starts it by saying, “Wow you’re good at drawing.” 

He’d caught a glimpse of the dolphin Richie had been doodling in the corner of his paper before he’d shoved it into his folder. 

“Thanks.” Richie says lowly. He drops the folder into his backpack and zips it up without looking over at Eddie.

“Do you like drawing?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“Do you like dolphins?” 

Finally, Richie turns his head and a stare sits between them for a long time. Finally, Richie blinks. 

“Yes.” He replies. Then trains his gaze forward again. Eddie assumes he’s done talking until he follows up with, “they’re my favorite.” 

It makes Eddie smile and he says, “I like ducks.” 

Richie looks at him again but this time something blows across his face. Surprise? Confusion? Eddie can’t tell. 

“Ducks?” Richie says, “Never met anyone who’s favorite animal is a duck.” 

Eddie doesn’t know why but he likes the way Richie talks. 

“They have cool feathers. I like the green ones.” Eddie explains. “I tried collecting them but my mom made me throw them away because she said they’ll make me sick.” 

Richie nods, thinks for a second and says, “I’ve never seen a dolphin in real life.” 

“Me either. I’ve never been to an aquarium because of the sharks.” 

“I’m not scared of sharks.” 

“You’re brave.” Eddie says. Once, at his uncle's house, he’d seen a video of a shark attack and it gave him the same repeating nightmare of a shark pulling down him under water, tearing off his arm and eating it whole. 

Richie shrugs. 

Their conversation ends when Mrs. Stats tells everyone to pack up. 

Eddie deflates a little. He likes talking to Richie. 

The rest of the year is filled with simple conversations like that one, little insignificant discussions over things that don’t matter. In reality, nothing matters to six year olds. 

-

Second grade. 

Eddie would like to call Richie his friend. He’d like to hang out with him at recess and have him over for playdates. He wants to be his friend so desperately it’s borderline pathetic.

But Richie holds himself at a distance. He cuts conversations before Eddie can get anywhere near asking him over, and during recess he sits at the same picnic table, alone, drawing all over the inside of his notebook. He never lets Eddie look, even when Eddie asks. 

He’s always trying. Trying to push a few more words out of him, trying to get him to come play with him and Bill and Ben. But Richie doesn’t seem to want that. 

He shoots conversation back and forth with Eddie sometimes, but it’s less than last year and he rarely initiates it.

Eddie starts to wonder if Richie actually hates him. 

-

Third Grade. 

A lot of things change that year. 

Richie meets a boy named Henry Bowers and Eddie learns why he and Richie can never be friends. 

It’s because Richie’s actually a foul human being.

-  
Sixth Grade.

Eddie had fooled himself into believing that because of Richie’s one act of kindness, maybe things were going to be different. 

A few days later Richie wraps his foot around the leg of Eddie’s chair and pulls it out from under him just as he goes to sit down. Eddie falls flat on his ass and looks up at Richie. His heart sinks when Richie gazes back at him with that same disgusting shadow smearing from one end of his face to the other.


	3. Eddie

Sixth grade.

Bill and his date, Bethany, accompany Eddie and Madison to the dance.

Eddie had spent an entire two days begging and bribing Bill to ask someone, anyone to go with him, just so Eddie’s own experience would be slightly less awkward. Bill’s good at easing any tensions a room might have holed up in the walls. He knows what to say when there’s silence and he knows how to talk over Eddie’s stupidity. 

On the night of the dance, Eddie’s mother almost changes her mind and tells him to stay home. She claims he’s too young to even be in the same room as a girl. Eddie contemplates letting her have her way but then he thinks about all the time and energy he’s put into making this night happen. He can’t just not go. He argues with her for at least an hour, and at some point, she gives in.

Madison and her dad show up a quarter after six to pick him up. He and Madison sit in his living room for the better half of thirty minutes while Eddie’s mother demands Madison’s dad give her a run through of the entire nights itinerary. 

After they’re in the car, Madison’s father looks at him through the rearview mirror. “You’re mother’s quite the talker,” he comments. Eddie sighs. 

“You’re telling me.” 

That makes Mr. Wafer smile. He starts the car and they head over to the school.

Eddie tells Madison he likes her dress. She blushes. 

The school comes into view and Eddie oogles at the amount of cars lining the busing circle. When Madison’s dad parks, Eddie sits there for a minute and watches his peers loiter around the parking lot. It reminds him of cattle being herded into a barn.

Madison pops her door open and gets out. If Eddie were a proper gentleman, he would have hustled to get out of the care to open her door for her.. But his mother never taught him how to act around girls. 

With the thought still on his mind, he walks up to the school, making sure to beat her to the doors so he can hold it open for her. It makes her smile.

After they sign in, Eddie’s first mission is to find Bill. He feels obligated to hide his intentions from Madison, afraid of offending her with his selfishness. 

Twenty minutes later, he’s showing off some of his embarrassing dance moves. He finds that if he moves a certain way, it makes Madision laugh. Which makes things to be slightly less awkward if she’s thinking his awful dancing is intentional. 

Bill sneaks up behind him and grabs him by the shoulders. He yelps and spins around expecting to find someone else. He’s relieved to find that it’s just Bill.

Bill laughs at him and Eddie punches him on the shoulder. 

“You suck.” He shouts over the music. Bill laughs again, and when Eddie looks at Madison, it’s clear that she had been laughing at him too. 

Bethany says hi and Eddie thinks about how her dress is probably a little too short for a sixth grader. He has to reminds himself that he doesn’t know very much about fashion so it’s not his place to judge. 

After ten more minutes on the dance floor, the group migrates to the cafeteria where Bill smashes on a plate full of cookies and Eddie downs four cups of punch. They sit at a circular table so that they all face each other; conversation is easier that way.

“So Eddie was choking and I’m trying not to pee myself when I finally realize his life is actually in danger. Being the heroic gent that I am, I freak out and frantically run around looking for a teacher.” Bill explains, his lips curling up to show a big open smile. Eddie really wishes he wouldn’t have to bring up such embarrassing things, but Bill likes to make people laugh and Eddie’s a pretty good punchline. 

“He didn’t die, obviously,” Bill follows up before shoving a whole cookie into his mouth. 

Eddie glances over at Bethany and sees she’s got her chin over her knuckles with a look on her face as she looks at Bill, as if she’s been in love with him for the last twelve years of her life. Eddie’s eye roll is internal and when he looks over at Madison he’s not surprised to find the same exact expression spread across her face too.

If he did roll his eyes, he’d probably roll them so hard they’d disappear into the back of his head. 

Eddie stands up and excuses himself. He heads to the bathroom. 

After he’s done pissing, he turns around just in time to see Noah walk in. Eddie swallows. 

Noah offers him a small closed mouth smile and makes his way over to the sink farthest to the left. He begins to wash his hands and Eddie thinks back to when Noah had told him he has a thing about washing his hands. Noah’s mother says that he almost does it enough for it to be a problem.

Eddie watches him, trying to come up with something, anything to say. He glances around, double checking to make sure every stall is vacant before he asks, “Did you come here alone?” 

“No, I came with Nicole.” He responds. Eddie nods, then remembers Noah can’t see him.

“You came with Madison,” Noah states as if it were a fact he was reading out of a textbook. 

“Yeah, she asked so I thought ‘why not?’” Eddie says in a rush. 

Noah turns the sink off with his elbow and walks over to the paper towel dispenser. He uses his elbow again and pushes down on the lever, once the strip is lengthed enough, he rips it down and dries his hands. 

“Do you like her?” 

“I think she likes Bill.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” Noah’s voice is solid but he doesn’t look at Eddie, not even when he crumbles up the paper towel and throws it in the trash, leaving his attention unoccupied. Eddie’s slammed with a sudden wave of nerves. He fidgets with his tie. 

“Um… I guess no, not really.” He admits. It’s not something he has to think too hard about. He likes Madison, she’s a cool person -- funny, pretty, smart, but the only person Eddie’s ever liked in the way Noah’s talking about is Noah. “She’s a cool friend,” he adds, feeling awkward. 

“Like me?” Noah asks and there’s something in his tone that makes Eddie wonder if his intentions are marinated in something other than curiosity. 

Eddie doesn’t know what to say.

He almost answers with a ‘yes’, but then Noah looks at him in a way that makes him change his mind. 

“No.” He breathes before he anxiously paces a couple of feet to the right, unsure of what to do after that, and he feels like he’s about to die. If he knows one thing for sure, it’s that he can not swallow enough air. 

“No?” 

His assumption is correct, he’s almost sure Noah’s testing him.

“No,” he restates, his tone stronger than before. “If you’re trying to get me to say that I like you…then okay, I’ll say it,” he breathes, knowing that now is the time to redeem himself, “I like you Noah and I’m sorry.” 

Eddie fits it all into one breath. It’s rushed and separated, but he says it clearly enough to draw out the surprise hiding in Noah’s expression and help it rob him of all his mischief.

He opens his mouth to say something but closes it when someone walks in. 

Eddie glances over and sees Richie. 

Richie’s coming towards him and when he’s close enough to reach out and grab Eddie, Eddie can’t help but flinch. Except Richie’s not even looking at him. He’s looking at the floor, and face looks a little grey. 

He slips past Eddie without even touching him. 

Full of uncertainty and driven by the feeling of being unsafe, Eddie keeps an eye on him, just in case he decides to turn around and shout ‘psych’ before sucker punching him in the gut. 

Eddie watches him until he’s standing in front of a urinal and then when he realizes that Richie’s skill level probably doesn’t extend past kicking him in the face while taking a piss, he looks away. 

After some thought, he finds Noah’s eyes and wishes they were anywhere but here. 

Richie’s quiet behavior probably would have surprised him if it wasn’t for the stunt he pulled earlier in the week. 

A tension falls between the three of them, the air so heavy that when Eddie tries to breathe, his throat swells up. 

He begins to wonder if Richie finds it odd that they’re both just standing there, and with the rumors about Noah, he wonders what kind of assumptions Richie’s making about him. It makes him nervous. What if Richie had heard-

A few long minutes later, Richie walks over to the sinks and Eddie holds his breath until he feels his lungs start to shrivel. Richie seems to take an eternity squirting soap into his palms and lathering it between his fingers and over the back of his hands. He rinses off every single sud, then takes a step back, gazing at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t go for the paper towels, instead, he shakes his hands a couple times, water droplets spraying downward, and Eddie has a hard time looking away. Even when Richie turns around and catches him, Eddie keeps on watching.

Richie stares at Eddie, and Eddie finds a lot of bad things on his face. It kind of freaks Eddie out. He blinks. Unable to look any longer, his gaze hits the floor and a strange feeling floods him.

Richie doesn’t stay in the bathroom for much longer after that. He leaves without having said a word. 

Eddie can’t stop thinking about how there must be two different people living inside of Richie.

“There’s something wrong with that kid.” Noah says earnestly with a different kind of crinkle in his eyes, Eddie nods his head. There’s no disagreeing with that. 

Eddie feels uneasy. 

-

On the last day of sixth grade, Ben brings a box of donuts to school for lunch. 

He swallows four of them, whole, within the first five minutes of Eddie sitting down. He eventually tilts the box in Eddie’s direction and raises an eyebrow, offering Eddie his pick. Eddie carefully analyzes each donut and in the end, he settles for a chocolate one. 

“Good choice.” Ben says with the end of a cream stick lodged in the right side of his cheek. Eddie smiles, takes a couple bites and puts the rest off to the side of the tray. He picks at it in increments. 

Bill has a trail of frosting starting from the corner of his mouth smeared down to the freckle on his chin. Madison, who’s sitting next to him, giggles before tearing off a piece of her napkin and putting a few fingers underneath Bill’s jaw to turn his head, making it easier for when she goes wipe his face for him. 

Eddie watches them. Part of him is disgusted, the other part is also disgusted. 

He’s finding it kind of hard to digest the fact that sixth grade is already over. His first year of middle school already packed up and ready for the archives of his brain. It’s a file of memories he’s probably never going to look at again.

Noah comes up behind him and touches the back of his shoulder. Fearing it’s someone else, he withers away, but when he turns his head and sees Noah standing there smiling, he smiles back. Eddie motions at the empty seat next to him.

Noah plops down, slings his bag from his shoulder to his feet and gazes up at Bill and Madison. They’re sat too close, poking each other in the sides and laughing annoyingly loud. Noah raises his eyebrows.

He glances over at Eddie, a smirk stretching across his lips before he pokes Eddie right below the ribs. 

Eddie gasps a little too dramatically and swats his hand away. He makes a face but Noah ignores him. He turns his attention back over to Bill and Madison. After a minute, he starts to laugh; manic and obnoxious. It’s very clear that he is mocking them.

They both stop messing around to look at him. Madison frowns once she realizes she’s being made fun of. Bill’s reaction is lost somewhere behind hers.

“That’s literally what you guys sound like.” Noah says. Eddie has to look down into his lap to hide his smile.

“Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize laughter was a crime.” Madison says a little too seriously. Bill raises a hand and lays it on her shoulder. He runs it downward like he’s trying to comfort her. 

Noah opens his mouth to say something, but Eddie decides that’s probably not a good idea. He elbows him in the side. Noah breathes in sharply and clamps his jaw shut, then whips his head around in Eddie’s direction and his expression asks, “What?” 

In a way, Noah’s a lot like Bill, possibly even worse than Bill. Bill usually needs to be provoked to open his mouth, whereas Noah likes to push buttons just to see what will happen.

Like some kind of bug, he’s drawn to the neon, bright, flashing lights that give him the chance to be a nuisance. Those lights tempt him, egg him on. Eddie is still learning how to catch Noah’s wrist before he can smash them all at once. 

Right now, he’s holding Noah’s wrist, figuratively, and Noah’s looking at him like he’s a child who was just told he couldn't have any candy. Eddie gives a slight shake to his head; he’s still smiling but he knows that if Noah keeps going, things could escalate pretty quickly. Madison is sensitive and Bill doesn’t do too well when he’s the butt of a joke.

Noah rises his shoulders for a second then drops them. He looks forward and gifts Bill and Madison with a sickly sweet smile. Bill rolls his eyes, and then the bell rings. 

-

He isn’t sure what he and Noah are doing.

They talk almost every night, (through email -- Eddie’s mother told him he isn’t allowed to own a phone until he’s twenty) they hold hands sometimes, (when no one’s around) and they’ve even kissed before (Eddie hadn’t seen it coming, it lasted two seconds).

Eddie supposes he doesn’t really care what they’re doing, he just likes being around Noah.

Later that day when he, Bill and Ben are standing outside next to a picnic table during a break between classes, Bill says, “Noah’s kind of annoying. I don’t get why you like him so much.” 

Eddie can pick out an array of reasons as to why Bill would say something like that. For starters, Bill’s always been a jealous guy and Eddie is his best friend. Noah takes up a lot of Eddie’s time, the time he could be spending with Bill. 

There’s also the fact that Noah can talk just as swift as Bill can. They think in similar ways too and sometimes people dislike the same qualities they might have when they’re in other people.

So Eddie gets that Bill might be feeling a little threatened, he understands that, but he doesn’t understand why Bill has to say, 

“Not to mention the guys a fucking faggot.” 

That makes Eddie feel very cold, as if his bones were replaced with ice picks and he lives in a world where the sun doesn’t exist. 

He says nothing, nothing to defend Noah, nothing to counter Bill’s hostility. He simply looks down at his shoes and hopes that no one can see the way he feels on his face. 

He feels them watching, he knows they’re waiting for him to say something. So he pushes everything down and forces himself to lift his head. He looks over at Ben because the way Bill’s face twisted when he said the word ‘faggot’ is still a very vivid in his brain.

He sees that Ben is looking nervous. He’s holding his lower lip between his teeth, and his eyes crease with worry. Eddie blinks a few times and has to remind himself to keep it all off his face.

“Um…” he starts, not really having a solid idea about what he’s about to say, “don’t be such as asshole.” Is is what comes out, but his voice is so weak that the words tilt and crumble to the blacktop under his feet. There’s a gap of silence where no one says anything and Eddie is almost sure that if they didn’t know before, they know now. 

He walks away without saying anything else. 

-

When he trudges into the gym, it’s dark, and he thinks perfect. 

Eddie walked in with the intention to get a good cry in. He just feels like it. 

The small windows lining the perimeter of the room allow for some light, making it so there isn’t anything black about the darkness laying around him. 

He inches over to the bleachers, grateful they’d been left out, and takes a seat. 

Sitting there, he tells himself he’s ready for it; nothing happens. 

He swears the urge had been there just seconds ago.

“Eddie?” A voice says from behind him. Eddie’s so startled he jumps nearly a foot in the air. Swiveling around, he finds a shadow sitting a number of rows above him. Eddie squints but it’s too dim to visually distinguish who the voice belongs to.

The figure stands and takes a step onto the seat of bleachers. He stills for a moment, watching Eddie, and then starts to make his way down. 

As the mysterious stranger draws closer, it turns out that he isn’t all that mysterious and he isn’t a stranger either. 

After what feels like a long time, Richie is finally standing next to him. Eddie’s head levels at Richie’s waist so he has to tilt his gaze upward to look at Richie directly. Richie stares back down at him. This goes on for only a short period of time before Richie abruptly jumps down to the foot of the bleachers and sits next to him.

Eddie watches him look forward and fix his attention on something positioned on the other side of the room. He doesn’t say anything for a long time. They sit there with a nothingness hanging between them that Eddie didn’t realize could exist. 

He doesn’t feel the panic set in like it normally would when Richie’s around. Maybe it’s because of the way Richie had said his name. 

Almost like he was relieved. 

“Why are you in here?” Richie asks, his voice nonthreatening, no pressure carried with his words. Eddie doesn’t think that the truth to that question would earn him very many points in Richie’s book so he shrugs and says, 

“I don’t know.”

He wants to ask ‘what about you?’, but he’s fearful that saying anything at all would break the fragile calmness that sits between them. Richie doesn’t respond after that and they sit there for another minute. 

The air starts to taste stale in Eddie’s throat, and as time goes on, he almost forgets it’s Richie who sits next to him. 

Eddie finds an assortment of words resting at the bottom of his lungs. They float up towards his tongue, but they’re unwanted so he audibly coughs, covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow, to keep them down. 

Richie talks instead. 

He says, “It’s always dark in here. It's a good place to come when you want to be alone.”

But Eddie isn’t alone. Richie’s sitting right here.

Richie’s voice doesn’t sound very much like his own and his shoulders drop so low that it makes him look small. 

He never knows what to say to Richie. 

Richie’s fingers are all tangled up together and there’s something sad invading his atmosphere that Eddie doesn’t like to be around. 

“You’re a terrible person,” Eddie says it with a sincere tone, like he’d just told someone what the weather's going to be like today.

Something goes down around them, it breaks and withers and dies. Eddie feels it in the silence. 

“That’s fair.” Richie almost whispers. Eddie doesn’t know if that’s what he expected Richie to say, but Eddie’s just very grateful that he hadn’t responded with his fist.

They don’t talk for the rest of the time that they sit there.

Richie’s the one who stands up first. Eddie looks at him as he does so and watches him hop down until his feet are firm on the gymnasium floor. He doesn’t turn all the way around to face Eddie; instead, he makes his chin parallel with his shoulder and he says, 

“See you around,” then he leaves. 

Eddie is now alone, sitting in the dark. 

He thinks that might have been the day he stopped being afraid of Richie.


	4. Eddie

Seventh Grade. 

Eddie’s voice gets deeper this year. He also grows hair under his armpits and buys his first razor. 

Even though he looks a little different and feels different too, his transformation is nothing compared to some of the boys in his class. Take Bill for instance. 

Within what seemed like the span of week, Bill grew about two feet taller, gained the ability to sprout a mustache on command and didn’t just grow armpit hair, but a full blown bush down below.

Eddie isn’t jealous or anything, he doesn’t really care if Bill looks like a high schooler and that Eddie still looks like- this. Why would he even want hair down there anyway? Seems like more of a problem than a positive.

Ben got taller too. His wideness has stretched upwards, making his legs look longer and his arms leaner. It’s not too noticeable, but Eddie notices.

They’re not in very many of the same classes this year and in English, Eddie has to befriend a kid named Ollie so he isn’t continuously paired with someone who’s testosterone compensates for their brain. Ollie smells a little weird but he supposes it’s better than the alternative. 

Eddie’s sick of going over syllabus and by fourth period, he starts to daydream about what kind of an angle his hand would have to be at to shoot through the part of his brain that allows him to hear.

His math teacher’s face reminds him of a rhinoceros. He’s not really sure why. He’s never known anyone to have a specific facial structure that imitates the features of a rhinoceros as well as Mr. Neeze’s do. It probably has to do with the way his nose is pointed in an upward curve. It’s cartoonish. 

He doesn't realize he’s smiling until Noah reaches over and touches his arm. He looks over. 

“What are you so happy about? Is it our futures in ratios and proportions, or percentages and scale drawing? 

Eddie doesn’t even acknowledge that Noah asked him a question. He says, 

“Don’t you think Mr. Neeze kind of looks like a rhino?” 

Something that looks like fondness spreads from Noah’s lips, to his eyes.

“That’s what you’re thinking about?” 

Eddie half shrugs and feels the temperature in his cheeks rise. Noah keeps smiling and leans in to say,

“You’re cute.” 

The heat in Eddie’s cheeks start to feel more like a fire, catching on his freckles and spreading across the bridge of his nose. Noah only grins wider.

Noah takes his arms off the table top and drops them to his sides. He lets them dangle there for a few seconds, and then Eddie feels Noah’s hand brush up against the outer side of his thigh. It’s a soft gesture, one that touches against the delicate part in Eddie’s chest. 

He smiles at Noah, and Noah acknowledges it with a slight tip to his head before turning away and projecting his focus back onto Mr. Neeze. 

Eddie goes to the do same but in the midst, he spots Richie sitting across from them.

He’s staring at him. 

Eddie ignores him.

-

A couple months later, Eddie’s sitting in a diner called Uncle E’s, alone, flipping through a book that he’s already read. 

Someone slides into the booth across from him and when he looks up, he expects to see Noah; instead, he finds Richie staring at him.

Richie leans back with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. 

Eddie feels something bad in the deepest, darkest part of his body. His eyes slit, and he grips his book tighter.

“What?” he asks.

Richie’s face contorts, his lips pull into an overly dramatic frown and he brings his shoulders up to his ears in a large shrug. 

Richie hasn’t paid him much attention this year. He’d been teased a few times, and there was that surprise headlock he’d been captured in a couple weeks ago, but lately, Richie’s left him alone.

“You looked lonely.” He answers eventually, a sideway smile swiping past his smirk. Eddie almost makes a face, but directs the effort on keeping his expression clear. 

“I’m reading?” Eddie says like Richie’s stupid. He lifts the book a little higher as if Richie can’t see it and then he drops it again. The spine of book makes a sharp crack when it hits the table. 

Uncle E’s isn’t very crowded today. There’s only a handful of people in the whole restaurant and none of them look like they’re missing a curly headed idiot. 

“I see.” Richie replies blandly with an eyebrow raised. He opens his mouth again, but Eddie cuts him off with, 

“What are you even doing here?” 

“I’ve got a date with Savannah Mace.” He replies slyly. There’s contentment in his expression. He leans back even farther and throws an arm over the back of his seat, his fingers sprawling off the edge. Savannah Mace is an 8th grader with perfect teeth and a bigger rack than most of the seniors in their high school.

“She probably won’t even show up.” Eddie says plainly. He looks down and sees that his book has fallen shut. He flips it open and acts like the paragraph he’s not even reading is the most interesting thing in the entire world. He hopes that by ignoring Richie, it will encourage him to leave. But he only stays where he is and laughs. 

“Probably.” He agrees. Eddie wordlessly looks up and scolds himself for letting anything other than nothing tamper with his expression. 

Richie’s smile gains momentum, “Pretty sure if it hadn’t been for the audience she would have blown me off. Girl’s got a reputation to maintain.” 

It’s kind of strange to hear Richie talk like that.

Eddie doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. They stare at each other. 

He starts to wonder why Richie has even bothered coming over here and striking up a conversation with him. They both know it will lead nowhere. Richie will still be that asshole that fucked with Eddie’s childhood in more ways than one, and Eddie will still be the boy who never stood up to him. 

“She wanted to go to Hangs. Can you believe that? Hangs. As if. I told her they banned me for a dine and dash. It was a lie, but I figured it’d score me some bad boy points and save me the trouble of stomaching another one of the world’s shittiest burgers.” Richie says. He’s sitting sideways, one arm still strung up on the booth while the other rests flat on the table. He boredly runs his fingers through a dish of sugar packets. Eddie blinks at him. 

Unsure of what he’s planning to say, he collects a gallon of air and prepares himself to speak. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. 

Richie asks, “So...what are you reading?” 

Eddie looks down at his book as if he’d forgotten the title. 

“Zamora,” he replies in a way similar to how he’d answer a teacher. 

“What’s it about?” 

“A bunch of Mexican kids running around selling drugs.” 

“That sounds fun.” 

“I like it.” 

“I’ve always wanted to be a drug dealer.” Richie says gazing out the window longingly. Eddie knows he’s joking but he says,

“You’re not the brightest so it probably wouldn’t hurt to look into it.” It’s only after he actually says it that he regrets it, and his instincts tell him he should prepare to run.

He doesn’t listen to his body: instead, he remembers what it’s like to feel cold and tries to translate it into a stare. 

Richie’s eyebrows shoot up, disappearing under his curls. He snorts. 

“Okay, smartass.” 

Eddie shrugs and wraps his fingers around the glass of water he forgot was there. He slides it closer, dips his head down and catches the straw between his teeth. He sips it down and the dry patches spotting his throat smooth away as he swallows. 

Richie watches him. 

Eddie gulps and he sits up straighter, using the tips of his fingers to push the glass away. While retracting his hand, he runs it through the trail of condensation. His sleeve is now damp. 

“For your information, my intelligence is above average.” Richie says. He stares at Eddie's hand and a thin smirk slides from his eyes down to his lips. 

“Oh,” Eddie says, cocking his head to the side. “I thought intelligent people spent their time being productive, not tormenting others.” 

This gets more of a reaction. Richie frowns a little. He pulls his arms in closer and folds up on himself. Eddie watches his throat move up and down as he swallows. Strange, is all Eddie can think, all of this is just strange.

Richie eyes flit upward and he doesn’t hesitate when to open his mouth, as if he’s found the right thing to say.

He doesn’t have the chance to say anything because Noah plops down into the empty space next to Eddie. 

“Richie,” he says, less like a greeting and more like a statement. 

Richie’s face dims a shade and his frown doesn’t lighten up. If anything, it goes deeper. 

“Noah,” Richie mimics, his voice is much more sour than it was a minute ago. 

“When I was in the parking lot I ran into Savannah. She said she was meeting you here.” Noah mentions casually, placing his hand on the seat of the booth just behind Eddie. It makes Eddie notice how close he’s sitting, so close that their thighs press together and their shoulders almost overlap. Eddie feels every bit of cold leave his body. “So why don’t you go do that?” 

Richie stays quiet for a minute, as if he’s trying to come up with a snarky comeback. But the moment passes, and he either gives up, or decides against it. He scoots down until he’s sitting on the very edge of the booth then looks up at Eddie one last time. He gets up.

He doesn’t watch Richie walk away. He hadn’t noticed his body was so stiff until it softens against Noah’s. 

“Was he messing with you?” Noah’s voice rises slightly more than normal. 

“Uh...no, actually.”

Some of the sternness in Noah’s expression is traded for confusion. 

“He was...I don’t know, trying to be nice, I guess.” Eddie still isn’t sure what to think. He isn’t sure what kind of a reason Richie has for talking to Eddie like he had. The only plausible explanation he can come up with is that Richie’s converted to Christianity and this is him trying to make amends. But even that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. 

“Guy’s a fucking nutcase.” Noah says under his breath. He sighs and leans back. 

Richie and Savannah are seated only a few tables away and if Eddie turns his head just enough, he can see them. He avoids doing that for most of the night, but one out of the two times he falls weak to his curiosity, he finds Richie staring at him. 

He doesn’t look as happy as he did earlier, and when their eyes meet, Richie looks away almost immediately, plastering a smile on his face and giving it to Savannah. 

Richie’s the most confusing person Eddie's ever met.

-

Bill’s always hated sports. 

So when the three of them are sat on Bill's back patio and he mentions that he’s thinking about trying out for football next year, there’s a lot of things Eddie wants to say, all of which he never does. 

Bill doesn’t look like a football player. He’s too skinny, too lanky and too smart. Eddie would like to see the way Bill’s mouth runs after a few too many concussions. 

Ben asks, “Why the hell would you want to do that?” 

Bill shrugs like he doesn’t have a clue where he got the idea, like he’s oblivious to the fact that it probably has everything to do with the new alliance he’s formed with Matt Zarger. 

Matt’s a football player, and a one good too. Last year, he took the 6th grade team to playoffs and got a whole section in the local newspaper dedicated to his ‘talents’.

Eddie hadn’t seen the birth or the evolution of Bill and Matt’s friendship. All he knows is that it originated in their intervention class, the one they had towards the beginning of the year. 

Since they’ve become friends, Matt’s dropped by their lunch table a few times, stealing conversations from Eddie and making Bill act all weird. 

Eddie wouldn’t go as far to say hates Matt, but when he and Bill pass each other in the hallway and make their weird bird call screech- Eddie definitely hates that. And after the third time it happens, he asks Bill if there’s a joke behind it. Bill only laughs at him, and then again a few seconds later like he was still thinking about it. 

Eddie had always thought Bill was the jealous type but as it turns out, so is he. He knows he shouldn’t be so strung up about it. Matt is a neanderthal, after all. How serious can their conversations be? Matt isn’t insightful like Eddie is, he can’t give advice or debate or say anything without adding on a drawn out ‘bro’ before it.

Still, Eddie can’t help but worry, especially when Bill’s acting the way that he is. 

Bill flexes his hand around his water bottle and watches as the water overflows from the top. 

“I broke up with Madison.” 

Eddie and Ben look at him. 

“What?” They say in union. They glance at each other. 

“I wasn’t feeling it anymore.” 

“You weren’t feeling it? Or Brittany Hughes was feeling you?” Eddie says. It was supposed to sound clever and sly, but it just comes out sounding stupid.

Irritable, Bill sighs. 

“There’s nothing between Brittany and me.” Bill shakes his head and Eddie doesn’t strain, not even a little, to pick out Bill’s bullshit. 

Bill was so far up Madison’s ass that the only explanation is Brittany Hughes. Bill’s always had a thing for her, something about the blond streaks in her strawberry hair and the way her eyelashes fan out over her cheeks, or some bullshit like that. But Brittany never once looked at Bill, not until he started hanging out with Matt. 

“Yeah right.” Ben says. He stands up, looking pretty done with Bill. He starts to head for the side of the house.

“Where are you going?” Bill calls after him. Ben doesn’t stop, only flips around so he’s walking backwards. 

“Home,” he answers and turns forward again. 

“What crawled up his ass?” Bill asks, but there’s something in the fringe of his voice that suggests maybe he already knows the answer.

“You.” Eddie says bluntly. Bill gives him a look that says ‘excuse me?’. Bill scoffs and makes a face. 

“I didn’t do anything.” 

“You’ve kind of been acting like a dick.” 

“Oh, have I now?” Bill’s eyebrows pull together and he looks a little offended. 

“Yeah,” Eddie doesn’t explain himself, even when Bill offers him the silence to. 

“How so?” Bill asks sinking back into his lawn chair. His expression is catty and screams, ‘I’m waiting’. Eddie takes a deep breath. 

“You’ve been really into your new friends so he’s probably feeling a little neglected.” Eddie says. He feels a billow of dejection jump him.

“What the fuck does that even mean? Am I not hanging out with you right now? Do I not talk to you guys everyday?” The hostility in Bill’s voice takes Eddie a little off guard. 

“Geeze Bill, why are you getting so defensive?” 

“Because I don’t appreciate being called a dick for having other friends.” Bill snaps. Eddie feels a little angry and everything in his face turns downward. 

“You know that’s not what I mean. And you can pretend all you want, but all three of us know you’ve been acting different.”

“Different?” Bill throws himself back, there’s a ‘flop’ sound as all the air is suctioned out between him and the chair. “I’m not allowed to have new friends, grow, develop or whatever, but you can suck Noah’s dick until the world ends and that’s totally fine.” 

Eddie stands up then, almost knocking his chair over in the process. He scrambles out from behind the table and tries to peel off the awful feeling clinging on to his every layer of skin. 

He looks at Bill with everything on his face. 

“Whatever, Bill,” he seethes and then leaves. 

At home, he’s still hurt, still angry. When he walks through the front door, he makes sure to slam it behind him. 

He instantly regrets it when his mother comes rushing out of the kitchen. 

“Eddie, what’s wrong?” She fusses then, proceeds to come closer. 

He doesn’t answer her. 

He goes to his room and leaves her on the other side of his door, worrying. 

What the fuck ever, Bill. 

Eddie’s never talked about Noah to his friends. He feels awkward and weird, and he wishes that he didn’t, but he feels ashamed. Ashamed and scared of what they’ll say and what they’ll think, and when Bill says shit like that, it makes everything a lot harder.

He wishes Bill knew just how awful that made him feel.

There’s no reason for him to be like that. 

-

Ben begs him for almost three days before Eddie agrees to accompany him to his annual family reunion. He is not looking forward to it. Neither is Ben.

Ben acted as though attending this reunion would be the equivalent to having his teeth ripped out. It shouldn’t have come as a shock to him that Eddie had said no at first.

Ben put up a good fight. He told to Eddie how awkward he feels having to face fussy aunts with names he can’t place and weird uncles who ask him why he isn’t playing football this year, every year. At least he gives him the news that three of his cousins are chefs and the feast they have is other-worldly. 

Eddie eventually says okay, but it isn’t the food that sways him or the promise that though insane, his family is at least entertaining. It’s the sadness sipping the life out of Ben’s expression. Bill usually goes to these things with him. 

When they arrive at the park, there are way more people than Eddie had anticipated. Ben had made it seem like no one was going to show up. He said, ‘everyone’s old and dying, the turnout hasn’t been very good these past couple years’. But Eddie counts at least thirty people standing around before the reunion even starts and that’s already triple the size of his family -- the dead included.

He gets a few strange looks, probably because he isn’t taller and doesn’t have red hair. But Ben introduces him to those who ask. After a half hour of catch up, they eventually go over to the playground where they sit secluded for about five minutes before one of Ben’s cousins approaches them. 

“Where's your cute friend?” She asks, laying her palms on the platform they’re sitting on. She leans forward, her shoulders jut out and her head tilts to the left. 

“Thanks.” Eddie says sarcastically. Her eyes widen slightly and she blushes. 

“Sorry that’s not what I meant.” She blurts, shrinking back. Eddie smiles mildly and shrugs. 

“It’s okay, I know what you mean.” 

“Samantha, you wouldn’t be a thought in Bill’s head even if you were naked and willing, so please stop trying, it’s pathetic.” 

Samantha blushes a shade deeper, and then narrows her eyes and purses her lips. 

“Screw off, Ben. It doesn’t surprise me that Bill ditched you, he probably realized what a fucking loser you are.” She says. Ben glares at her and she glares back. At some point, she walks away. 

“Okay,” Eddie says a little confused.

“Don’t you have cousins?” 

“I have one and he’s twenty-four.” 

“Oh.” Ben glances in Samantha’s direction. “That’s probably for the best, they’re really annoying.” 

Eddie shrugs and then there’s a long pause that squeezes in between them. 

“Have you talked to Bill at all?”

Eddie doesn’t answer the question. He evades it by asking, “Have you?”

“Not since I stormed out of his house.”

“Oh… I stormed out too.” 

“You did? Why?” Ben shifts a little, adjusting his shoulders so that the two of them are more squared. He looks curious. Eddie shrugs again. “You’re not gonna tell me?” 

“It doesn’t matter, he’s a dick.”

“Well, I already know that.” Ben swallows and looks down at the mulch. He kicks at it with his chucks. “Do you think this whole ‘popular jock’ thing is going to last?”

“No.” 

“Me either, he’s too… I don’t know. I don’t want to say smart because of what a jackass he’s being right now. He doesn’t deserve any compliments.” 

“Agreed.” Eddie says. Then there’s some silence.

“He said something mean about Noah.” 

Ben is careful as he looks Eddie over, like he’s trying to piece together what Eddie means by that. Ben isn’t a stupid guy. 

“Yeah?” Ben says gently, “He doesn’t mean that stuff.” 

Eddie’s heart starts to beat a little harder. He feels it in his throat.

“He’s so mean sometimes.” 

“You know he doesn’t care about that.” Ben presses and then after a minute he follows up with, “You know I don’t care either, right?” 

Eddie nods even though he’s never really known. It’s hard to tell. Boys don’t like to hear about that kind of stuff. Even if it might be ‘okay’ and they might not really ‘care,’ Eddie knows they’d feel better if it wasn’t like that and that’s reason enough for the ache in his chest to hang around.

“It makes me… sad sometimes.” He says timidly. There’s some relief when he says it, but it’s quickly tackled by a distorted feeling of embarrassment. He suddenly feels very pathetic, especially when Ben’s expression offers him an apology for something he shouldn’t be sorry for. Ben brings a hand up and claps it over Eddie’s shoulder. It’s a comforting gesture, one that makes Eddie feel a little better.

“It’s okay to feel sad sometimes, but you don’t have to be sad about that Eddie, I promise. Bill’s only being annoying because he’s jealous.” Ben says. Eddie just nods again. He understands what Ben’s trying to say, and he understands the purpose he has for saying it. It’s very hard for him to believe it.

“Thanks, Ben.” 

Ben looks at Eddie in such an earnest way that it makes Eddie want to hug him.


	5. Eddie

Seventh Grade. 

It’s Saturday when Noah shoves Eddie into his mother’s minivan.

He’s surprised when they pull into the parking lot of the local YMCA. When Eddie asks, Noah tells him they’re here for his youth group meeting. Everything in Eddie’s body deflates. This is not what he was expecting. 

Earlier when Noah had marched into his room, demanding that he grab a pair of swim trunks and some shitty shoes, he figured that they’d be going to some cool indoor waterpark. 

Noah hops out of the passenger seat and pops Eddie’s door open for him. Eddie snags his foot on the car liner and almost says hello to the sidewalk. Noah catches him by the shoulders before he has the chance. 

“Woah there.” He says pulling Eddie upwards and making sure he’s standing properly before letting go of him. Eddie’s cheeks start to burn. Noah laughs, “You’re funny.” 

“Shut up.” Eddie mumbles before turning his face downward and casting his attention to the cracked pavement under his shoe. Noah steps back and sticks his head through the car window. He says something to his mom that Eddie doesn’t hear, and she says something back, and then the window starings creeping up and the van starts rolling forward. Noah takes Eddie by the wrist and starts to lead him to the entrance. 

When they step inside, the first thing Eddie sees is the giant cross hanging down from the banister. He stares at it until Noah tugs him through the lobby, into a smaller room filled with a lot of tables and a lot of bodies.

Eddie glances around and Noah lets go of his wrist, abandoning him to walk over to a tall man in a striped button up shirt. His sleeves are cuffed at his elbows and his beard is long and scruffy.

Eddie stays put and watches Noah talk to the bearded man. When Noah turns around, some confusion unfurls in his expression, as if he was expecting to see Eddie behind him. He sweeps his eyes around the room until they land on Eddie, who is standing right where Noah left him. 

Noah smiles at him and motions him over. Eddie goes over slowly. He navigates around chairs and weaves between bodies and once he’s standing next to Noah, Noah puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“Eddie, this is pastor Michael.” 

Eddie tries for a smile but it doesn’t quite fit his face. He covers it by saying, 

“Nice to meet you.” 

Pastor Michel grins at him and reaches out to shake his hand. 

“So glad you could make it. I hope today’s lesson offers you the guidance you may be looking for.” He says. Eddie doesn’t know what to say to that, so he’s immensely grateful when Noah whisks him away to one of the tables in the corner.

Once they’re sat down, Eddie kicks Noah in the shin.

“You could have warned me.” Eddie hisses. Noah’s got a dopey smile on his mouth. 

“Well I know how much you love surprises.” 

Eddie hates surprises. And according to the olympic level gymnastics his stomach is doing right now, this isn’t a pleasant one. 

He usually doesn’t think about religion; it just makes him feel weird.

He knows Noah’s mother has a couple crosses perched up on the mantel above their fireplace, and he also knows she’s been through remission twice and she’d just had her third recurrence a couple months ago. It makes sense to him why Noah’s mother needs someone like God to help smooth over the worries that may be tearing her up inside. The unknown is scary. 

If there is a God, Eddie isn’t sure what kind of terms they’d be on. Yeah, there are a lot more worse things Eddie could be doing than thinking about boys. But still. There are a lot of people who think the way he feels is wrong. There’s got to be some truth in that, right?

Pastor Michael started talking almost five minutes ago but Eddie had been too wrapped up in his thoughts to hear any of it. He looks over at Noah whose gaze is trained forward, like he’s listening intently. 

Eddie decides maybe he should tune in too. 

“-some of you may fear that you are not worthy of His love, that you must live your life striving to earn His love. But I am here to tell you that nothing can separate you from God, no amount of doubt, no single sin. God’s love is real and it is yours.” 

The brightness excreted from Pastor Michael’s face is almost blinding. He talks with such conviction and enthusiasm that Eddie can tell every part of his being believes in what he is preaching. “With that being said, I will lead us into today’s lesson.”

The lesson centers around guilt. Eddie learns the way guilt is perceived in the church -- as Satan’s way of keeping one's mind constantly thinking about personal sins. The way to get rid of this continuous cycle of thought, is to simply ask for forgiveness. 

Eddie watches Noah for a good portion of the seminar. He really does try to hone in on what Pastor Michael is saying, to turn it over a couple times and take it in with an open mind. But when he looks at Noah… all he can think about is what kind of guilt he might feel for calling Eddie his boyfriend.

Eddie had never thought about that. Never thought about if Noah prays at night. If he asks God for forgiveness when he holds Eddie’s hand during the day. 

He sits there and watches everyone stand up to say their goodbyes before filtering out of the room. Noah doesn’t give Eddie any warning before he walks over to Pastor Michael. They exchange a few words, and then Noah circles back over to him. 

“Come on.” He says, beckoning him forward with a wave. Eddie gets up and follows him. 

They’re in the mass hall as Eddie’s debates over what exactly it is he wants to say. 

“I didn’t know you were so interested in religion.” Eddie says, recalling how Noah’s attention had been wholly captured by pastor Michael. With his back to Eddie, Noah shrugs. 

“I mean, I’d say I’m more interested by it, than into it.” Noah says a few seconds later. He abruptly comes to a stops and when Eddie looks up, they’re stood in front of the locker room. Noah pushes the door open and walks in. Eddie trails in close behind him. 

He mauls over what Noah had just said, trying make sense of it.

“What does that mean?” he asks.

“I don’t know- religion’s always been interesting to me. I grew up with it so I’ve always believed in it to some extent. I like hearing what the preachers have to say. But most of the time I look at it objectively.” Noah says. He shoulders his backpack off and slings it onto the bench in front of him. He unzips it and tugs out Eddie’s swim shorts, throwing them at Eddie. He doesnt catch them, so they parachute down to the floor. Eddie bends down to pick them up while Noah yanks his own out. “Plus, it makes my mom happy.” 

Eddie can understand that.

“What do you think?” Noah asks, grasping his trunks in one hand and working the zipper on his bag up with the other. Eddie contemplates his answer for a second. 

“I don’t really think about it anymore. I guess- I guess it scares me.” Noah looks at him.

“Why?” he asks like he doesn’t have a clue. Eddie quickly glances around. They’re alone. 

“You know why.” He says softly. A dullness creeps into Noah’s expression. 

“Because you’re gay? Eddie, that’s stupid.” He says flatly, almost like he’s offended. Eddie didn’t think it was that stupid.

“How is that stupid? If so many people believe-” 

“Those people are stupid.” Noah cuts him off, already looking done with the conversation. He looks away from Eddie and picks his bag by its top strap. He disappears behind one of the curtains hung in front of a changing rooms.

 

Uneasy, Eddie stares down at his swim trunks and lets his vision become tangled in its pattern. He blinks and goes into the changing room adjacent to Noah’s.

-

By the time they make it into the pool room, Noah’s acting like their little quarrel had never happened. Noah splashes Eddie before he even makes it into the water. 

Eddie tries to loosen up his thoughts, tries to bury them beneath a smile, but they seem a little stubborn today. Even when he falls back into his and Noah’s usual rhythm again; apparently, his uneasiness wants to trump over any true enjoyment he could be experiencing. 

“I bet I can beat you from this end to that end.” Noah says, pointing to the other side of the pool. Eddie bets he can too. 

They race anyways. Noah wins. 

There’s not very many people swimming today. Across from them, there’s a few teenage girls messing around, but they’re the only other people in the pool. It’s peaceful. 

Eddie holds his breath and descends beneath the water. He attempts to swim to the bottom of the pool, but he only makes it halfway before his lungs are telling him to come up. He breaks the surface and gulps down some air while rubbing the water from his eyes.

He peers over at Noah and sees him floating on his back. Eddie swims over to him and throws his arms across Noah’s chest. He pushes down until Noah’s completely underwater. Alarmed, Noah starts thrashing and twisting around until he’s out of Eddie’s reach. Eddie just laughs.

“Dick!” Noah shouts once he’s regained control. He glares at Eddie, but Eddie only continues to smile. 

After a brief conversation and a few minutes later, Noah’s pulling himself up and out of the pool to go to the bathroom and grab them some snacks. 

Not even fifty seconds after Noah leaves the room, Eddie feels a pair of hands take him by the shoulders and push him underwater. 

Due to his shock, Eddie instantly inhales a mouthful of water before his instincts settle in and he starts kicking. The hands are off him as quick as they were on him and when he comes up, he's violently coughing water. He whips around, sees who it is and shouts, 

“What the fuck Richie!” 

Eddie leans onto his back and propels his foot into Richie’s stomach to hit him, but it's not very hard. Richie only hunches over slightly, a huge grin on his face. He laughs and Eddie coughs a few more times. 

“I couldn’t help myself,” he says smirking. 

“You’re an asshole.” 

“Hey now, watch your language. God is watching.” 

“If anyone should be worried about what God thinks it’s you!” Eddie says splashing Richie in the face. Richie turns his head and laughs. 

“You sure about that?” he says teasingly. Though engulfed completely in water, Eddie catches on fire. He doesn’t say anything, only swims over to the latter and hoists himself out of the pool.

He grabs a towel so he can drape it over his shoulders before he stomps over to the bleachers to sit down. With a pout puffing up on his face, he tugs the towel down so he’s clutching the edges of it to his chest. It spreads tight against his back. 

Meanwhile, Richie swims up to the edge of the pool and positions himself directly across from Eddie. Richie props his elbows up on the ledge and sets his chin on his forearms. He’s still smiling, so Eddie gives him the nastiest look that he can come up with. It only seems to make Richie’s smile grow wider. 

Richie stares at him and in return, Eddie glares back. This goes on for at least a solid minute. Then Richie lays his hands flat on the cement and lifts himself up. He uses his knee to push himself forward, dripping everywhere as he stands. He jerks his head to the side, flipping his hair out of his eyes and makes his way over to Eddie. 

Richie doesn’t even glance at the towel rack before walking over and sitting down next to him. A puddle of water collects on the bench and flows over to where Eddie’s sat. It soaks into his shorts. Eddie stares forward, holding his jaw firm and trying to put all his focus onto something, anything else. 

“Is it not clear that I don’t want to talk to you?” Eddie says snappily.

“Huh? I thought the evil glint in your eyes was an invitation.” Richie responds. Eddie scoffs. 

“Yeah okay,” he mumbles, “why are you even here?” 

“I could ask you the same.” 

“Well, I asked first.” 

Richie makes a sound that could almost qualify as a laugh. Eddie feels him shift around next to him. 

“My grandma made me go to that youth group meeting.” 

Eddie looks at him. 

“Well, I didn’t see you.” 

“Well, I saw you.” Richie’s tone dips down close to mockery and Eddie starts glaring again. “We were on opposite sides of the room.” Richie adds. He looks thoughtful for a moment then continues with, “You didn’t look very happy to be there.” Eddie lets a beat of silence pass before he responds. 

“Are you telling me you were happy to sit through an hour long speech about how guilt is just Satan’s way of controlling us?” Eddie asks irritably. 

Richie laughs again. 

“It wasn’t the worst hour of my life,” he says shrugging, and then looks off to the side as if he had started thinking about the worst hour of his life. 

Eddie doesn’t reply; he’s too busy trying to tap into Noah’s brain using telekinesis. 

“So...you don’t believe in any of it?”

Eddie sighs heavily, “I don’t know- probably not. Does it really matter?” 

“No- I was just curious.” Richie stays quiet for a moment. “I’d like to believe that someone’s watching over me like that. I can see how it could be comforting. People who believe that seem happy.” 

Eddie blinks, turns his head, and then blinks again. 

“Then why don’t you?” 

“It doesn’t work like that.” 

Eddie lets that fester for a second. He’s probably right. 

Eddie’s mother has always considered herself a religious woman. She’s one of those people who sits on the idea but never really does anything to prove herself as a Christian. They’ve gone to church for two Easter Sundays and a few more times after that, but they usually only go when she’s having a really rough time. She makes Eddie go too because she doesn’t want to go alone. She hates being alone. 

Eddie wasn’t really raised that way- per say- he’d just been expected to fall into that ‘natural’ circumference of belief. When he was young, he thought everyone believed in God, like it was a law. A law that if broken- rather than trials or prison- you’d just go to hell. 

Between the second and third grade when his mother’s company tried to promote her, Eddie briefly had a babysitter called Jennifer. Jennifer was thirty four and her eyes, ears, lungs and heart were filled with God’s love- that’s what she would tell Eddie- and every time she came over, she brought a children’s Bible so that he could read her a verse or two to pass the time. She left frequent notes for his mother, asking her for permission to take him to church because she feared his morality would not be strong enough without it. 

But Eddie’s mother didn’t want them to leave the house. She could barely even stand the idea of Eddie, alone, in her own home with a woman she’d interviewed five separate times, filed a background report on and set up a security camera for. In the end, those things didn’t matter. 

His mother’s anxiety eventually got the better of her, and after less than a month, she decided on a demotion, self-inflicted. A day later, she had everything from her new office packed up in boxes and sitting on the desk of her old office, the one down the hall from Eddie’s bedroom. 

After that, God did make him think more. A recurring idea that made him second guess his choices, rethink between right and wrong. It wasn’t a bad thing necessarily; honestly, it probably did more good than harm. But there was always that constant fear that he was going to mess up, that God wouldn’t want him, that God saw through his good, polite exterior and straight into his impure core. He’d been scared. He’s still scared. 

When Eddie looks over, Richie’s watching him. 

His expression is unreadable, his chest is bare and his is hair dripping all over his shoulders. Eddie stares at the purple skin laying across his collarbone. 

Eddie doesn’t see Noah walk in. He doesn’t even notice him standing in front of them until he says,

“Richie. Funny seeing you here.” 

His eyes are narrowed and his arms cross over his chest. Richie gives him a little smile and nods at him. He rests his hands on his thighs and leans forward like he’s about to stand. 

“Yeah, I was just about to head out.” 

Noah keeps his voice pretty calloused when he says, “Good.” 

Richie doesn’t react to Noah’s hostility; instead, he shifts to his feet and directs a glance Eddie’s way.

“Bye, Eddie.” Richie says. Eddie watches him walk away. He only stops so he can pick up a towel. He takes two. He throws one over his shoulder and the other one over his head, then he exits the room. Eddie crumbles up his attention and tosses it over to Noah. 

“I swear he’s stalking you.” 

“He’s been stalking me my entire life.” 

-

It’s humid and dark on the night Henry Bowers takes it a little too far. 

There was an old oak tree down the road from Ben’s house that spoke to him once when he was younger. The branches had reached down for him, leaves brushing his cheeks, wood scratching his shoulders. And it had pointed to it’s trunk, more specifically, the little nook dipping inwards, the one breaking down its roots and pushing back its bark. Ben felt like it was made just for him. 

Years later he still goes to that nook when he’s looking for peace, when what the world is offering him isn’t enough. 

When there’s a book he wants to read, he reads it there. When there’s an overwhelming amount of homework to be done, he does it there. When Henry Bowers makes a comment that Ben wishes he would keep to himself, he goes there.

On this very humid and very dark night, he’s sleeping in the nook.

He hadn’t meant to- he’d only intended to rest his eyes for a few minutes after he finished his homework for Math and before he began his essay for English.

He’d been sleeping for two hours when Henry Bowers and Victor Criss find him. 

They don’t wake him up. 

Victor Criss crouches down next to Ben. He scrunches his face in so hard that the skin underneath his chin bunches up. He mimics the way Ben’s head drops to the side and his bottom lip pouts out. 

Henry laughs as quietly as possible. Hunching over slightly, he puts his hands on his thighs. 

“You could be twins,” he says lowly, and then Victor stands up and pats his hands on his jeans. 

After a minute or two of fucking around, Henry’s face lights up. 

“Wait here.” He says, and then makes a sharp pivot in the direction of his house and sprints off. Victor waits. 

He watches Ben. The dim street lamp, partnered with the moon, sheds just enough light to exhibit the circular shape of Ben’s face and pudge padding his body. 

Victor continues to stare at him, his skin itching with something close to disgust. He scratches his arms.

Ten minutes later, Henry comes back. He’s holding a heavy metal chain and a dog collar. 

Victor eyes the chain for a second before flicking his gaze back up to Henry’s face. Henry’s crooked teeth are very much exposed in the grin he’s wearing. It’s a familiar grin, one that Victor knows very well. 

Henry doesn’t say anything, he only walks over to Ben and drops down to his knees. Not taking his eyes off of Ben, he raises a hand and motions Victor closer. 

“Be ready to grab him incase he wakes up.” He orders and then undoes the collar. Victor watches Henry lift Ben’s foot and slip the collar underneath his heel before buckling it around his ankle. He gives Victor a sideway glance. Smirking, he says, 

“I didn’t think it’d fit around his fat neck.” 

“Good call.” Victor agrees, nodding. Henry straightens up and they both take a step back. Henry walks over to the side of the tree where the branches hang lower and the leaves are more scarce. He puts his palms down on the lowest branch and hoists himself upward. At first he almost falls forward, but he shifts his weight back just in time and steadies himself. His hands burn a little from the rough texture of the bark but he’s unbothered. Once he’s confident enough, he slowly rises to his feet and sends a silent prayer into the tree, willing the branch strong enough to hold him. It does.

Looking up, he touches another branch above him. Once he’s situated securely, he reaches for another. He doesn’t attempt to climb it, he instead wraps the chain around it a couple times and then knots it. He tugs at the length of the chain to make sure it won’t unravel and smiles when it doesn't. 

Once back on the ground, he catches a glimpse of Victor’s smile. 

“You’re a genius you know,” Victor says. 

“I know.” Henry replies. “He’ll be too fat to climb up there. He’ll be completely fucked.” 

Henry was right. Ben’s body is much too large, and he is far too out of shape that when he finds himself grabbing hold of that very first branch, he can’t even pull himself up off the ground. 

When he wakes up, he finds himself alone and chained to a tree. After the initial panic subsides, he immediately turns to strategy and tries to release himself from dog collar squeezed around his shin. It was no use, there was master lock clasped around it. His heart pounds.. 

An hour passes.

For sixty-two minutes he paces back and forth, thinking about how it was probably Henry who did this to him. 

Henry lives about four minutes down the road and he owns a pitbull called Spike. There’s a sloppy ‘Spike’ scribbled on the outside of the collar in a black marker. 

He gives up any plans for escape about eighty-seven minutes in, accepting that he’ll probably be here at least until the morning. He hopes his mother doesn’t die of a heart attack.

He contemplates going back to sleep and decides that’s better than freaking himself out over what kind of creatures are lurking around in the woods behind him. If something does decide to eat him, at least he won’t be expecting it. 

He closes his eyes and approximately nine seconds later. He feels a raindrop splatter across his nose. His eyes fly open and he automatically draws his face in. Ben lifts a hand and wipes the drop across his cheek until most of it’s soaked into his skin. As he tilts his head up towards the sky, a feeling of cold dread sinks down into him.

Lightning brightens up the darkest parts of the sky.

-

The next morning, Eddie gets a call. 

When he takes his phone from his mother and puts it to his ear, he realizes it’s Ben. He sounds so sad that Eddie can feel it in every layer of his skin. 

He tells Eddie how he’d spent the night outside, chained to a tree, terrified and soaked all the way down to his underwear. How it had stormed so violently, how the anxiety he’d felt while strapped up with a metal chain, lightning flooding the sky. It had worn him down so much he was sure he’d die. He wouldn’t be at school today. 

Eddie had known about the storm. A few claps of thunder had woken him up several times throughout the night. That alone was enough to freak him out. Picturing being outside in that, he couldn’t imagine. 

Later at school, he tells Noah why Ben isn’t there and it puts Noah in a bad mood for the rest of the day. He tells Eddie he’s been thinking of different ways to avenge Ben, but Eddie doesn’t like that idea so he makes Noah promise that he won’t do anything. Messing with Henry has only ever made things worse. 

Bill hasn’t been talking too them lately but when he catches wind of what Henry did, he marches over to where Eddie’s sitting in the library and slams his hands down on the table. 

“Is it true?” he asks. Eddie looks up and finds a ticking time bomb in Bill’s eyes. Eddie blinks. 

“About Ben?” he clarifies. 

“Yes.” 

“Yes.” Eddie answers. That seems to satisfy him because he whirls around and then he’s gone. 

He hadn’t let Noah lose himself in the scheme of revenge because he’d feared the mess it’d make. However, he wasn’t going to stop Bill. 

-

A few days later, Henry shows up to school with a sprained wrist and a black eye. 

It was such a glorious sight to see and Eddie had been glad Ben was there to see it. But when they asked around, no one seemed to know what happened. Except for Bill. 

At lunch, he sits down with them for the first time in weeks. 

They look at him a little surprised. It subsides once they see the look on his face. Eddie doesn’t even know how to describe it. An odd mix of sorrow and satisfaction? The three of them sit in silence for a couple minutes, then Bill leans in closer and says,

“It was the football team. We jumped him.” He says it is so casually, it makes Eddie second guess what he’s heard. Bill picks up an apple and bites down into it. 

Eddie and Ben stare at him. Then they look at eachother. 

“Bill-” Ben starts to say, turning back to him. There’s a wobble in his voice that only Eddie hears. Bill interrupts him. 

“Look- I- I’m sorry,” he says gazing down at his tray, “You guys were right. I have been acting like an ass- I- I don’t know why- but I’m sorry.” 

Unlike in the past, Eddie doesn’t need to squint to see the serenity in the way Bill says it. And when he looks up at them, the extension to his apology is uncharacteristically bold. Ben nods and then Eddie nods too. 

“It got to your head, that’s all.” Ben says. Bill’s expression shifts around uneasily.

“I- I hope you guys can forgive me.” 

“Of course Bill, of course.” Ben smiles. “With what little time you have left, we would be dicks not to.” 

Bill laughs lightly, “We wore masks.” 

“Smart thinking,” Eddie remarks with an undertone of sarcasm. 

“Yeah, I figured it’d buy me some time before Henry starts asking questions.” 

-

Eddie’s mom is late picking him up. 

Bill usually walks home so when he sits down next to him, he knows he has something to say.

He doesn’t say it right away. They pass the time with small talk for a minute or two, play a little game of catch up, and then it gets quiet. Eddie focuses on how many cars drive past them to keep his mind from running. Eventually, Bill says. 

“Listen Eddie- I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for being such a dick to Noah. I said those things because I knew it would make you feel bad- I know it was wrong - but I wanted you to- hurt- because… I guess I don’t really know- but I’ve been thinking about it a lot- and I’m just- sorry.” Eddie’s never heard Bill’s voice skip like that. He doesn’t take very long to say, 

“I forgive you.” It’s soft. Bill might suck sometimes, but who doesn’t? Eddie thinks he understands. Sometimes things are frustrating, people say things they don’t mean. 

“I don’t care that you like dudes, really, I don’t. We’re always going to be best friends.” 

“Thank you, Bill.” 

Bill nods and hangs his head. 

“I shouldn’t have even needed to say that, you should have just known- I just-” 

“It’s okay.” Eddie says, cutting him short. He bumps their shoulders together. Bill still doesn’t look very content and he opens his mouth like he’s got more to say but after a second, he closes it with a sigh. A few more after that he opens it again.

“It really isn’t.”


	6. Eddie

Eighth Grade. 

Eddie isn’t really sure how this happened.

He really hadn’t done anything. Well, he supposes maybe he had, but everybody cusses. He’d just had terrible timing is all.

Now he’s sitting in a small room staring at a wall trying not to cry because he feels as if he’d just been fucking framed. 

Earlier, when one of the monitor’s had sat down in front from him to ask him why he would say something so horrible to a teacher, he almost threw up on her. He’d been so frustrated, so humiliated. He couldn’t even defend himself. She must have seen how close to tears he was because when he’d started speaking, there was an earthquake in his voice.

She’d kept her expression leveled the whole time and it didn’t do anything good for his nerves. The way his anxiety consumed every word he spoke was supposed to make her understand that he didn’t do it. 

The worst thing about it is how big of a wimp he feels. If he can’t even stick up for himself over something as minor as this, how is he supposed go out into the real world and function like a normal person?

When the monitor had gotten up to leave, Eddie immediately wanted tell her to sit back down so he could start over. But he’s a fucking pussy. She’d left with a watery version of the truth and the notion of how breakable Eddie really is. 

Here’s what happened: he’d been sitting in Math with Ben, sitting side by side, working on the assignment the substitute had passed out.

The substitute had been a woman Eddie’s never seen before. She was on the younger side, mid twenties, blond, thin, pretty- in a homey way. His first impression of her was that she sounded like a snake. He didn’t give her much thought after that.

He won’t lie, if you ask him; the assignment had been tough;. Tough enough to get him frustrated. 

Tough enough to make him cuss. 

And he doesn’t usually cuss in school, even when it’s called for, even when he’s in the right place and it’s at the right time. He just doesn’t cuss in school. So when he does, right in the middle of class, at an appropriate volume (or so he thought), he wishes he’d just been true to himself.

“Fucking fuck,” is all he said. That was it.

He said “fucking fuck” as he erased a miscalculation from his paper and dropped his pencil on the desk. He never regretted it more because just as he thought nothing happened, he hears,

“Excuse me?!” 

It came from directly behind him and when he looked over his shoulder, the snake-like substitute was staring down at him so hard it was like she was trying to scare the Devil out of him. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her eyes were so mean and so narrowed that Eddie’s heart had undergone a couple of violent palpitations. 

His jaw had loosened up until it eventually unhinged from his face and dropped down onto his desk after her anger fully hit him. She went off. It sounded something like this: “Why would you ever say something like that! That is completely unacceptable, so inappropriate. Unbelievable, that is just unbelievable. You are in a sanctuary of learning! You should know better than to use that kind of language!” There was more but Eddie had checked out towards the middle in order to keep his composure from being completely and utterly destroyed.

Being screamed at like this, in front of an entire room full of people, stocked him up on enough humiliation to last him for the rest of his life; so, he really didn’t need everyone to know how much it actually bothered him.

When she was done, he felt the weak, instinctive ‘sorry’ slip out. But she either didn’t hear or didn’t care because she did not react to it. She sent him to the office. 

He had sat in one of the fold-up chairs lined up against the front wall of the office for longer than he thought necessary. He listened to the substitute explain the situation to the secretary over the phone, which earned him a few pointed glances and one very hard stare. After the secretary hung up, she watched him for a few minutes before asking,

“Is there a reason you would say something like that?” 

Jesus fucking christ- it’s like no one ever stepped out in the hallway and actually listened teenagers talk. This is literally a middle school. 

“I just messed up on a problem,” Eddie says feeling like a complete and total idiot. 

“You don’t tell a teacher to F off just because you messed up on a problem.” 

“What?” Eddie said, his face twisting up.

Before he has the chance to fully think about it, Mr. Vic walks in. He strides up to the secretary's desk, makes a few flirty comments, and when he turns around and sees Eddie sitting there, looking about ready to blow his brains out, something in his expression shifts. 

“Eddie? What are you doing here?” 

“A substitute was trying to help him and he told her to F off,” the secretary answered snappily. 

What the fuck? Eddie brain goes into overdrive trying to make sure he’d heard her correctly. In what fucking universe did that ever happen?

“What?” Mr. Vic says glancing between them. Eddie’s gone pale by now and he’s sweating. “You sure you got the right kid? He’s never given me a problem before.” 

Mr. Vic please save me he pleads with his eyes, but there is only so much Mr. Vic can do. He wasn’t there, he had no proof to defend him. All he has is his testimony of what a star student Eddie is and no one seems to care about that right now.

Mr. Vic had stuck around for a few more minutes, but his presence did nothing to soothe the way Eddie’s heart was hammering against his chest. After Mr. Vic left the room, the secretary stood and motioned for Eddie to follow her. 

She’d ended up locking him in the ISS room and he’d never felt more like a criminal. A few minutes later, he had his pitiful encounter with the monitor. And when she left, she took all of his rationality with her. 

He realized that mauling over the situation was probably more on the unproductive side of things, so he’d tried to distract himself with other mindless thinking. But he’s shit at thinking small. He always spirals and every thought ends up with some stupid underlying meaning to it which usually leads to some kind of drastic mental revelation. 

It’s been over an hour since he’s been boxed within these four walls and he’s starting to think he may be going insane. Prisons are definitely wrong about the whole solitary confinement punishment if they're looking to rehabilitate someone. If anything, this would push him to homicide.

When the door opens, he has the urge to push past whos ever behind it and reclaim his freedom. 

He doesn’t do that.

He catches a glimpse of the secretary's arm as she shoves Richie into the room and closes the door behind him. Richie’s smiling before he even sees Eddie. 

Suddenly, Eddie feels like a gazelle being offered over to a lion. 

Richie walks over to the desk in the corner of the room and sits down. His head swivels forward and Eddie falls into his line of sight. Everything about his demeanor brightens. 

“Eddie?” he says sporting that same smirk Eddie’s seen countless times before. Eddie just sighs. “What are you doing here?” 

Eddie wishes the floor would open up and suck him down into the pits of hell because right now being the devil’s bitch sounds a lot better than being trapped in the ISS room with Richie.

Eddie tells him and Richie laughs. 

“If she can’t handle hearing a kid say ‘fuck’ she shouldn’t have become a substitute.” 

“That’s what I’m saying.” Eddie agrees, pulling at his fingers. He avoids looking at Richie directly, but he can feel the way he’s being watched, carefully, thoughtfully. After a minute Richie says,

“Just never thought I’d see you in here.” 

Eddie doesn’t respond to that, but the intensity of the silence that follows afterwards makes him want to say something, so he asks,

“Well, why are you here?” 

“You know Robert Burns?” Richie asks before he shifts around, situating himself more comfortably. He sinks deeper into his seat, slings an arm behind his chair, spreads his legs a little wider and cocks his head to the side. He looks effortlessly cool and Eddie wants to personally punch every single organ in his body for even thinking that. He nods instead. 

“Okay, well, I walked into the bathroom- the one of the first floor- and the dumbass was hanging out of one of those giant windows, smoking a cigarette. So I, a fellow dumbass, went over and asked to puff on it. Then fucking Larry Isic walks in, sees what we’re doing, and immediately leaves to tell Mr. Barrenson.” Richie’s face hints a bit of frustration, but it’s very clear that the idea of being in trouble doesn’t wreak havoc in his universe like it does to Eddie. Eddie supposes it’s because he’s used to it. “So here I am.” 

“Glad I asked.” Eddie says sounding very much like he isn’t. Richie’s smile doesn’t falter. He runs his tongue over his teeth and dips his head down even farther. 

“You know, being is a nuisance is a lot more fun than you think.” 

“Really?” Eddie says with a sort of dull sarcastic exasperation that only adds fuel to Richie’s flame. 

“Yeah. You can fuck just about everything off. No expectations, no filters, no worries. Next time you should try cussing her out on purpose.” 

Eddie doesn’t know if Richie’s trying to be deep or something, but it he isn’t taking to its effect. Eddie squints at him. 

“Sounds pretty sad to me. Good luck trying to make it in this world with a mindset like that.”

That puts a minor dent in Richie’s expression. 

“What does that even mean? I already have a life, what’s the point if it isn’t fun?” 

“Not everything can be fun.” 

“And why not?” 

“Because that’s just not how it works.” Eddie snaps. He looks away from Richie. One day he’s going to find Richie on the side of the street, homeless, poor and depressed. You can’t just fuck with people you’re whole life and expect it to work out. 

“Then how exactly does it work?” Richie says, sounding smart. In that moment, Eddie wishes he could strip him of his confidence and wear it himself.

“You have to try. Life is about trying, and failing and struggling and... it’s supposed to be hard.” 

Richie’s quiet for a second. 

“That’s a very sad outlook to have.” 

“I don’t make the rules.”

“Yeah but you can, it’s your life” 

Eddie looks at him again. He wants to shove every reason that makes Richie an idiot down his throat then watch him choke on them because Richie just doesn’t get it. Eddie sighs.

“Is every conversation we have going to be some profound revelation?” 

Richie laughs, his eyes crinkle and his chest moves up and down. 

“I guess so.” 

-

Eddie’s mother has a full fledged conniption fit as soon as he gets in the car. 

“I can’t believe this Eddie! Half a day in ISS and a detention! Where is the son I raised? Because he would never say such foul things. And to a teacher? Are you serious?” 

When Eddie brings up the fact that he didn’t say it to a teacher, that there was some kind of a misunderstanding, it only worsens her agitation. 

She continues to scream at him and he has to tune it out before he does something rash. He daydreams about punching her in the head, kicking her out of the car, jumping into the driver's seat and flooring it until he crosses the Canadian border. 

He gazes out the window, watching his classmates wandering around and making conversation with each other. Then he spots Richie, standing a good distance away, arms crossed over his chest with a smirk riding up his lips all the way to his eyes. He’s staring at Eddie. 

Eddie makes a face at him. 

-

During the summer before eighth grade, he’d been forced to move out of the house he grew up in and into another house approximately one neighbourhood over. The house wasn’t any nicer than his old one, not that it was any less either, but his mom had been paying rent on that house for over fifteen years and their landlord felt as though it was time for him settle down somewhere nice and quiet. He’d thought that was the home to do it in. Eddie’s home. 

So yeah, he was upset to move. He’s not a fan of change and he doesn’t like the idea of someone else’s shit spread out all across his room, or taking up the space in his closet, or even covering up the green paint on his walls. It’s his favorite color. 

Moving was hard. Not only emotionally, but boxing up everything he owned and dragging everything onto a Uhaul drained his soul from his body. Not to mention, it took up two weeks of his summer. 

He’d enslaved his friends during that time because going through something like that alone wasn’t possible. 

He and Noah had been stuffing the last of his winter clothes into garbage bags (they’d run out of boxes by then) when Noah told him something he didn’t want to hear. 

“Maybe instead of moping, you should be a little more optimistic,” he had said because yeah, Eddie was moping, but when someone is moping, the last thing they want to be told is that they’re moping. 

“Maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself,” Eddie snaps.

“There’s no need to be a dick.” Noah picks up some of Eddie’s hostility and uses it against him. Eddie throws a snow boot into a plastic tub and sighs. 

“Well sorry I’m not shooting fireworks out my ass. I don’t want to move, so let me be miserable.” 

Eddie finds the lid to the plastic shoe tub and slams it down in its place, it snaps closed and then Eddie straightens up and glares at Noah. Noah glares back. “You know you’re lucky your just moving, it could be a lot worse.” 

Eddie isn’t sure if Noah meant that as a ‘shut up my mom’s dying so my problems are bigger,’ or a ‘shut up there are homeless people who starving to death.’ Either way it just puts him in a worse mood and they shove the rest of Eddie’s shit into boxes without saying anything at all. 

-

On the first day of eighth grade, the new girl sits next to him in his Algebra one class. Her name is Beverly. 

She has red hair and his first impression of her: scary. 

She wears a black choker and dark eyeliner, and she chews her gum much too loudly for it to be polite. He hadn’t planned on talking to her.

“You got a piece of paper?” She asked him. It took Eddie a minute to realize that she was talking to him, and when he did he looked over with round eyes and parted lips. 

“Uhh.” he stuttered like an idiot before coming to his senses. He flipped his notebook open and ripped out a piece of paper, cautiously extending his arm towards her as if she’d rip off his fingers if he got too close. 

“Thanks.” she says, taking it from him. He watches her open her mouth, stick her fingers between her teeth and fish out the piece of gum she’d been chomping on. She balls it up between her index finger and her thumb before wrapping it up in the notebook paper he’d given her. She then crumbles the paper and places it on the corner of her desk. 

Eddie might have thought about how gross that was, but he’d never say it out loud. Beverly slumps down into her seat and stretches her legs out like she was a dude. Eddie hadn’t realized he’d been so blatantly staring until she whips her head around to look at him and asks,

“What?” 

“Nothing- I just- nothing.” Eddie doesn’t have time to think of a better response, so that’s what comes out. There’s vigilance in the way she watches him, but she eventually shifts her focus to the hangnail on her pinky. Once her eyes slid off of him, he lets go of the air that had been rotting in his lungs.

Beverly isn’t a very friendly girl- he picks up on that fairly quick. She never says hello to him, never smiles or asks to be his group partner. And Eddie doesn’t mind, he doesn’t really care. But there’s a Friday, a few weeks after school starts, where he’s standing in his local bookstore reading the backs of books, trying to stall before he has to go home, when he sees Beverly sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up and her back pressed up against a bookshelf. There’s an open book resting on the floor just above her feet. She looks like she’s straining to focus on it. 

Eddie watches her for a moment. He’s a little surprised to see her here, especially in a position like that. He turns away before she has the chance to catch him staring and probably beat the shit out of him. 

He ends up buying a book about praying mantises that take over the world, and while he’s checking out he hears Beverly voice. She sounds a little harsh, like she’s arguing with someone. After he cups the change in his hand and turns around, he spots her talking to an employee. 

The employee is young, Eddie guesses, probably a high schooler. Eddie can tell that he’s frustrated by the look on his face. And by the look on Beverly’s, she’s probably hurting his feelings. They’re standing near the exit, so when Eddie goes to leave, he tries his best to go unnoticed. He fails. 

Beverly sees him just before he’s about to grab the door and says,

“Eddie!” The volume of her voice sends a panic through his body, he instinctively jerks his head to the side and looks at her. She motions him over. He’s hesitant, glancing once more at the door before abandoning the idea of escape and approaching them cautiously.

Not knowing what to expect, Eddie prepares for the worst- which is being jumped, laughed at and left bloodied and bruised on the floor of barnes & noble. That would be embarrassing. 

“Eddie’s my boyfriend.” Beverly says to the boy, turning her face away from Eddie while taking a step towards him. She throws an arm over his shoulders and pulls him in. He stumbles into her and feels her boob press against his chest. He was not expecting this. 

Eddie swallows and the boy stares at him, not one trace of anything that resembles belief on his face. 

“Yeah right, he was just about to walk out of here without even acknowledging you.” The boy says, using simple logic to debunk her faulty lie. Beverly tightens her hold around Eddie. 

“He’s in a hurry to get home,” she says, eyes narrowed, talons out. 

“That kid is not your boyfriend. I’m not an idiot, Beverly.” 

“Are you sure about that?” 

The boy sighs and crosses his arms over his chest. He glares at Eddie. 

“We’ve been together for three months, is’t that right Eddie?” 

Oh shit. Think fast. 

“Oh yeah- I um- love her.”

At this point in time, Eddie would love more than anything for some sort of devastatingly horrific natural disaster to occur and wipe him off this plane of existence. A tsunami, an earthquake, a tornado- anything would do. He’s not picky. 

Beverly turns her face downward in order to hide the fact that she’s trying not to laugh at him. 

The boy’s glare only hardens. 

“You’ve never even mentioned him before, come on Bev, let me-”

Beverly raises her hand from where it’d been pressing into the nape of Eddie’s neck and puts it in front of his face, silencing him. 

“You’re being disrespectful to my boyfriend.” 

He opens his mouth again, looking ready to object. He’s interrupted when someone says, 

“Connor! Stop harassing that customer and come put these books away.” 

Eddie looks over to find a frowning woman behind the register, watching them. She’s got her hands on her hips and annoyance bunched up in the creases under her eyes. 

“Give me a minute!” he shouts. Eddie sees the annoyance in her expression shift over to something even worse. 

“A minute? A minute, you say? A minute that I’m paying for and receiving nothing in return. Hell no. Get over here now.” 

Connor’s cheeks look a little warm. He glances at Beverly, who is smiling wildly. She bats her eyes somewhat dramatically and gives him a little wave goodbye. He scowls, throws his arms to his sides and storms over to where he’s been beckoned. 

Beverly slips off of Eddie and puts some space between them. She’s still smiling when she says, 

“He really doesn’t know when to give up, he’s been pining after me for the last month,” she explains, Eddie gives her half of a nod. “Anyone ever told you, you should be an actor?” 

He knows she’s kidding-obviously- his performance had been so poor he’s surprised she didn’t kick him in the ribs for it. Dumbly, he still answers with a “no”. This makes her smile grow. 

“Good.” 

Eddie doesn’t know why Beverly never smiles when it makes her look like that. Her whole face brightens up, like the simple stretch of her lips is the gateway for all the light she’s never let in. 

She looks down at his hands and doesn’t ask before reaching down and taking his book from him. She flips it over to read the summary before flipping it again so she can study its front. 

“Interesting,” she says, still staring at the cover, “I’ll have to read it.” 

“You can borrow it when I’m done if you want.” 

She glances up at him and the smile that had fallen off her face returns. 

“Thanks,” she nods and then hands his book back to him before holding up the one that she had tucked under her arm. 

“This one’s about robots who run a rehabilitation center for teenagers addicted to food,” she says shortly. 

“That sounds cool.”

“It is. You can borrow it if you want.” 

A small smile sprouts out from beneath all his embarrassment and uncertainty. 

Maybe Beverly isn’t so bad after all.


	7. Eddie

Eighth grade. 

Over the weekend, Eddie and Ben go over to Bill’s house for a sleepover.

They eat candy until three in the morning and Eddie remembers why he calls these idiots his best friends.

Being with them is easy. He doesn’t have to think when he’s around them. They all fall into that same natural rhythm, making everything effortless.

“Jazmine is pretty hot.” Ben says nodding his head slowly. He’s staring down at their 5th grade yearbook. 

“Ben, she’s like ten in that picture.” Eddie says leaning over to rip the book out of his hands. Ben’s cheeks heat up.

“That’s not what I meant!” he exclaims. When Eddie looks over at Bill, he finds him smirking.

“Sicko.” Bill teases before throwing himself onto his bed. He lies down on his stomach and props his feet up against his headboard, balancing his head over his knuckles. After a few seconds, he wiggles towards the foot of his bed so he's closer to where Eddie and Ben are sat on the floor. “Jazmine’s a really good kisser, so good, that everytime we do it, I can’t help but think about all the dudes she had to go through in order to achieve that kind of sex appeal.” Bill sounds kind of defeated.

“Everytime you kiss her, you think about her being a whore?” Eddie reiterates, sounding mildly confused. 

“Yeah, and it's a real downer. I think I’m going to have to break up with her.” Bill says. He looks like he’s thinking about saying something else, eventually he adds, “You know she’s not even a virgin.” 

“For real?” Ben asks turning around to look at him. 

“Yeah and like- am I an asshole because it bothers me so much?” 

“I mean we’re fourteen,” Eddie says. 

Bill sighs, “I guess I’ll just have to roll with it for now.” 

Eddie wishes he were a little more like Bill.

Somewhere between thinking about the balls he doesn’t have and the way Bill isn’t afraid of living, he thinks about his conversation with Richie a few weeks ago. Eddie doesn't want to compare them but he can't help but notice that they both have that same live in the moment kind of attitude.

“So, who’s next on your radar?” Ben asks because he knows, and Eddie knows, that when Bill even thinks about a breakup, it’s already happened and he’s probably already got some other girl on the backburner. It’s just the way he does things. 

“Hallie Jarger.” 

“Hallie huh? She’s pretty sexy. Ten out of ten would smash.” Eddie says. Bill nudges the back of his shoulder and laughs. 

“Yeah, okay homo.” 

“Who you callin homo? Homo.” 

“Speaking of homos, where’s Noah?” Ben asks. This makes Eddie go quiet for a minute. He hadn’t invited Noah, he hadn’t really wanted too. 

“He had to go to his grandma’s this weekend,” Eddie lies.

“Ahh, good ole grandma’s house. I remember the back in day when my grandma was yet to be spread across the parking lot of a CVS, just the mention of her name would make my heart race with joy. Every time she saw me she would give me a crisp fifty dollar bill straight from the wallet of her heart." Bill says longingly. He follows it up with a sigh. 

“Can we go back to the part about the CVS parking lot?” Ben asks. 

“Oh yeah. When gram was cremated, my aunt parked across the street in a CVS parking lot because the one at the funeral home was too full, and while she was carrying my grandma’s ashes, she tripped on a rock and spilled them everywhere.” Bill explains. “RIP grandma,” he adds, touching two fingers to his heart and then raising them in the air. 

“I bet your grandma was pissed,” Eddie says. 

“Maybe...but I like to think she got a good laugh out of it. She had a great sense of humor," Bill smiles. 

“My grandma had deminisa and always tried to blackmail me into driving her to some old ass club so she could go swing dancing with the gals,” Ben says.

“Swing dancing?” Eddie quirks. 

“Yeah I don’t know- she thought it was the 1950’s for the last couple years of her life.” 

“Damn, I too wish I could escape reality,” Bill sighs.

“Deminisa is a horrible disease, Bill.” 

“So is the disease of life, Ben.” 

They stare at each other for a minute. Then a crack unfolds in Ben’s expression and they both laugh.

Later that night, when they’re trying to go to sleep, Bill gasps like he’d just remembered something important. 

“Guys, I just remembered something.” He says, jolting Eddie from the light sleep that had started to settle over him. He wants to be annoyed but doesn’t have any brain power left. “Matt’s having a party next week and he said you guys could come.” 

That brings a couple of his brain cells back to life. 

He isn't sure how good of an idea that is. He and Ben aren’t the best socializers. 

“I’ll think about it.” Eddie responds groggily, Bill whines. 

“Come on guys- you can bring Noah.” 

That’s not a very compelling offer but Eddie doesn’t say so. 

“I’m tired,” Eddie says flatly, then turns over on his side of the futon, smashing his face into his pillow. 

“I’ll go.” Ben says quietly and Eddie wants to turn back around and knee him in the back. Traitor.

“Alright Ben!” Bill says too loudly. Eddie sighs. 

He won’t give in.

-

He gave in. 

It’s Friday and school is extra shitty today. 

He had a Math test, an English test and a Science test, back to back, all equally awful, all pushing him one step closer to a fucked up GPA. He’s almost sure he’d bombed the Math one, half sure he’d bombed Science and fairly confident he’d made at least a C on the English. School isn’t really a priority at the moment. 

He isn’t exactly sure what is a priority; recently it seems like all he’s good at is wallowing in that same endless pit of despair. All for a reason that is unknown to him. He thinks maybe it has something to do with his hormones. 

In health class he’d learned when your body develops, so does your brain, and sometimes it produces chemicals that don’t make you feel so good. He doesn’t understand the science behind that- well he supposes he understands the literal science- like how- he just doesn’t get the why part. Why does the body even have bad chemicals in the first place? What’s the fucking point?

He’s good at that too; thinking about stupid shit. 

“What are you going to wear tonight?” Ben asks him after he’s finished labeling his side of the map. Eddie looks over and sees that he’s misplaced the Nazca plate. He tries to soften his sigh as he erases it. 

“Are you a girl or something?” Eddie says, writing Nazca in it’s correct location. 

“I just wanted to know so we don’t wear the same shade of lipstick.” Ben says sarcastically, pitching his voice higher. Eddie shakes his head. 

“You’re an idiot.” 

“And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Geez, I don’t know Ben, probably this,” Eddie’s voice is strung up in annoyance, “Does it really matter?” 

“I guess not, sorry for asking.” Ben backs off as if Eddie had just hit him. Goddamn Ben and his soft goddamn heart. Eddie doesn’t mean to be a dick but the more he thinks about this party, the more he doesn’t want to go. 

“No...sorry for being an ass.” Eddie says trying to draw Ben back out of his skin. Ben shrugs. He looks bored.

“It’s our first party, can’t you at least pretend to be excited?” 

Eddie bites back the snippy response clawing at the back of his teeth. He truly doesn’t get why this is so important to him. 

“Okay. You should wear the purple shirt with the tiger on it. You look nice in that one.” Eddie says evenly as he smoothes out all the ragged edges curled up in his expression. Ben looks like he’s taking it into consideration.

“Thank you for your opinion,” he says so formally it makes Eddie smile. 

“You're welcome.” 

-

Matt’s parents went out of town for the week and left Matt’s sister, Jane, in charge. It was a bad idea. Jane is a nineteen-year-old college student. Eddie learns she just so happens to attend one of the biggest party schools on the East Coast. He also learns that just last week she’d been recovering from alcohol poisoning. He isn’t an expert on the illness or anything, but he makes the assumption that she may possess poor decision-making skills judging by the beer she’s guzzling down in the corner of the room. 

Matt didn’t tell Jane how many people he’d invited. He also didn’t tell her he’d gotten in touch with one of her ex-boyfriends and scored them a shit ton of liquor. Jane may be irresponsible but she’s not a complete and utter idiot. Having a house full of drunk fourteen-year-olds is almost like jumping out of a plane with a faulty parachute. There’s a very large risk of becoming one with the ground; just like there’s a very large risk of being arrested for child endangerment. 

Jane doesn’t stick around for very long, apparently, she has her own party to attend. 

Eddie’s standing near a sofa, a dingy leather one shoved into the corner of the room. From there, he watches Jane thud her brother on the back of the head and say, 

“Don’t fuck the house up too bad, I can escape mom’s wrath but you can’t.” She heads for the door after that. Matt rubs the back of his head and scoffs. 

Eddie’s been here hardly ten minutes and he’s already wishing a glitch in the time-space continuum would take him out.

He’d brought Noah so he’d feel less lonely, but it somehow has him feeling even more lonely. Noah’s standing across the room, doubled over, laughing at something Kenny Ashalt’s told him. Eddie can’t believe Noah would rather talk to Kenny fucking Ashalt than him. Everyone knows Kenny is an absolute fucking joke.

Eddie decides he doesn’t want to look at Noah anymore so he tries to ease himself into party mode by scouting around. 

When he glances around the room, he realizes just how full it's become since he'd first arrived. His entire eighth grade class must be here. 

He ends up in the kitchen where he finds Bill making out with a girl that isn’t his girlfriend. It shouldn’t surprise Eddie in the slightest, but hearing about it and seeing it are two very different things. He’s never seen Bill so... animal like. As if he would starve without this girl’s tongue down his throat. Curiosity keeps Eddie watching, but when he sees the girl's hand move lower and lower down Bill’s chest, the urge to vomit forces him to look down at the floor.

Unable to be in the same room with them any longer, he turns around with the intention to head back into the hallway. Instead, he runs smack dab into something that feels like a brick wall. He steps back with his arms out and his palms forward, an apology already leaving his lips before he can even process whose eyes are staring down at him. It’s Richie. 

Of course it is.

Richie smiles at him. 

“You been drinking, Eds?” 

Eddie shakes his head. 

“Lame.” Richie says, making a show out of lifting the cup in his hand, to his lips. He watches Eddie with raised eyebrows and takes a sip. When he lowers it, he adds, “I bet you’d turn into a little comedian.” 

Eddie sighs. He goes to step past him, but he’s stopped. Not by Richie but by Ben, who wedges himself between them. Ben’s wearing his purple tiger shirt and he’s got two beers in one hand and a smile so loose it’s almost slipping off his face. 

“Ben, it’s ten o’clock,” Eddie says. 

“I’m not drunk.” Ben replies, clearly drunk. He offers Eddie one of the beers in his hand, well, more like shoves it at him. Eddie instinctively brings a hand up to cradle the beer to his chest so it doesn’t fall to the floor. “It tastes awful but it really does make you feel better.” 

“Please don’t say that. It sounds like beginning of an addiction.” Eddie says and then glances in Bill’s direction. Ben looks over too and then he starts to laugh. 

“He’s fucking crazy," Ben says. “Our crazy boy,” he leans into Eddie, “he’s so grown up, can you believe it?” 

“What the fuck Ben?” Eddie says, but a smile starts lifting at the corners of his mouth. He nudges Ben lightly and then looks up at Richie, who has been quietly observing them this whole time. He looks partly amused. 

Jackson Roger appears out of thin air and grabs Ben by the back of the neck. “This guy.” He says and then uses his grip to worm Ben around. Ben just laughs.

“Come play Benny,” he says before he’s swallowed by a wave of people passing them by. Ben watches after him until he's completely disappeared, then he turns to Eddie. 

“Can I go play?” he asks looking pouty. 

“Why are you asking me?” Eddie huffs. Ben laughs again then steps forward and throws his arms around Eddie, pulling him in for a quick hug before he leaves.

“Interesting.” Richie says. Eddie isn’t really sure what he means by that. 

Eddie gazes down at the beer in his hand and after staring at it for a minute, he caps the lid, tosses it on the counter and takes swig bigger than he can handle.

“Oh god,” he says almost sputtering it back up. It’s nasty. “That’s nasty.”

Richie laughs at him and then as if he were showing off, he chugs whatever’s left in his cup. 

“Wimp,” Richie says before crushing his cup in his hand. 

“Asshole.” Eddie snaps and Richie smiles so stupidly that all Eddie can think about is reaching over, ripping his mouth off and stomping on it. He takes another sip of his beer. 

Eddie is eventually able to shake Richie sometime after they migrate into the living room. It takes a bit of manipulation and a whole seven minutes of Eddie pointing at random people trying to get Richie to turn away from him. Richie surprisingly doesn’t care about who’s grinding on who or what messy girls are spilling their drinks on other messy girls. 

When the time comes, Eddie slips into the hallway and takes shelter in Matt’s loft, which, by the way, is absolutely ridiculous. There’s a giant TV that scales just as high and as wide as the wall it’s up hung on. The TV is synced up to an all around sound system, and there are at least five different gaming consoles set up just below it. Not to mention the room is entirely lined in black light. Eddie feels like he’s in a club. 

The music’s louder in here and Eddie can feel it from his feet up through his chest. He stands with his back against a wall and watches his classmates dance.

He singles out a mop of red hair bobbing to the beat near the center of the floor. It’s Beverly. She’s got her back pressed against the chest of a boy Eddie doesn’t recognize and has a hand on another boy, called Jacob, who is in front of her. She’s got a small smile on her lips.

He watches her dance with them for a long time. She’s fair with her attention, sharing it evenly between the boys. They don’t seem to mind each other’s presence.

He gets distracted once Ben bounces up to him again, a few more drinks in than when they saw each other thirty minutes ago. He hasn’t stopped giggling since he’d found Eddie and Eddie isn’t sure what about. Bill approaches them a couple of minutes later. His pupils are blown and his hair has tracks running through it from where some girl's hands had been. 

He doesn’t say very much, only puts his back to the wall next to Eddie. The three of them stay like this and Ben stops giggling to say,

“She’s beautiful,” and it takes Eddie a handful of seconds to realize he’s talking about Beverly. 

Bill says, “She’s a whore.” 

Ben doesn’t try to defend her, he doesn’t say anything at all. When Eddie looks over at him, he looks completely lost in a crowd he’s not apart of. 

Bill pushes off the wall with the back of his elbows and turns so he’s standing in front of the both of them.

“Guys I don’t know what I took but I think I’m tripping,” he says so casually Eddie almost thinks he’s kidding. 

When Eddie thinks about ‘tripping on drugs’, he thinks about teenagers with long hair who wear tie-dyed tee shirts and say duuude before every word. Bill’s just standing there looking dazed. 

“Eddie, I just watched you go through evolution backwards.” 

“What?” 

Bill sticks out his hand like he wants Eddie to shake it. 

“Nice to meet you gorilla Eddie.” 

Eddie just stares at him, eyebrows raised, a couple of questions geared up and ready to leave his mouth. Before he has the chance to say anything, Ben starts howling with laughter. 

A few seconds later, Beverly crashes their triangle. She throws an elbow onto Bill’s shoulder and drags him down a bit. 

“Hey guys.” She greets, looking a little sloppy with her hair mangled and her top pulled down. Ben goes quiet. 

Bill turns his head at the same time she does, they make eye contact and she laughs. 

“You’re looking a little pale there, Bill.” 

“Yeah, well, you look like a leprechaun.” 

The way Bill says it causes amusement to spark across Beverly’s face. 

“What’d you take?” she asks leaning closer to his face, as if she could figure it out just by the creases in his skin.

“I have no idea.” 

“Smart." She deadpans and then looks over at Eddie. She squints at him. 

“You don’t look very drunk, Eddie.” 

“I’m not.” 

“That’s a shame." She slides off of Bill. Beverly looks around like she’s searching for something specifically and soon, she starts to wave someone over. A guy who goes by the name Javis, just Javis, saunters up to them. He immediately grabs Beverly by the forearm and bends so that his cheek is close to hers. She says something into his ear and he disappears again.

“What was that?” 

“I told him to get you a drink.” 

Eddie frowns because he really doesn’t want a drink from Javis. 

“Everyone literally looks like an animal," Bill says. “Ben, you're triceratop. Eddie’s a penguin, and Beverly’s a lion.” 

“I’m a dinosaur?” Ben says. Beverly looks over at him as if she’s seeing him for the first time. His smile fades a little once he notices that she’s watching him. He looks away and into the mass of people where he finds an excuse to escape. He says, 

“I’m gonna go talk to Jackson," and hobbles off. 

Beverly hadn’t given Ben much thought, so when Javis returns with a couple of cans underneath his arm, her attention is easily diluted. He hands her three drinks. 

“Thanks." She says and leans up to kiss him on the cheek. When she pulls back, she turns to Eddie and shoves one against his chest. His arms go up to catch it.

“Drink. You’ll be feeling good after that.” 

Eddie wants to tell her he’d rather not, but she’s already headed back into the crowd with a hand squeezed into Javis’s. 

Bill watches her go and Eddie stares at the can. Like before when he’d drank that beer earlier, he mauls over the thought of actually being drunk because he just isn't sure.

And like before, he says fuck it.

A little over an hour later, he realizes Beverly had been right- he is feeling good.

He’d lost Bill, found Noah, danced with Noah, lost Noah, found Ben, watched Ben throw up on someone’s shoes, lost Ben and now he’s sitting on the floor in the hallway by the bathroom. 

It’s nearing two in the morning and his vision’s been going in and out of focus for the past ten minutes. He’s sweating and he can’t tell if it’s really warm in here or if his body’s just telling him it is. He rocks forward onto his feet.

The atmosphere has mellowed by now and the majority of people who are still here are lounging around, drifting in and out of conversation. Eddie doesn’t pay much attention to them. When he sees the front door, he makes his way over. 

Outside, it’s cooler and he instantly feels a sense of clarity rise up through the grogginess that had pushed him down. He takes a couple deep breathes, then hops down the steps leading off of the front porch. He sticks his hands in his pockets and goes over to the driveway where he kicks a couple of pebbles and looks at the moon. 

Being drunk doesn't elevate most of the anxieties and doubts he’d been having- it suppresses them to the point where he's forgotten they existed. He now better understands why alcoholics are alcoholics. 

“Hey.” Someone says. Eddie looks over to see Richie standing not too far from him, all tall and dark. He isn't surprised to see Richie standing there. He looks back at the moon and doesn’t greet him back. 

Richie approaches him slowly with a cautious dime to his step that usually isn’t there. He stops when he’s in a position that makes it so Eddie will have to turn in a completely different direction to avoid looking at him. Richie holds up his hand like he’s showing something off and curiosity makes Eddie’s gaze shift downward. He sees that Richie’s holding up half of a blunt. 

“You ever been high?” he asks. 

“Nope,” Eddie replies. 

Richie doesn’t say anything after that. Eddie watches him dig around in the pocket of his jacket for a lighter. Once he finds one, he sparks it up and puts the flame to one end. He blows on it and sparks it a few more times before placing it between his lips and puffing on it. When he’s done, he offers it over to Eddie. 

Eddie stares at it, then looks up at Richie.

“Where is it from? What if it’s laced?” 

Richie snorts and then filters a smile onto his face. 

“I mean... who knows. I swiped it off of Rod when he wasn’t looking.”

Eddie breathes out and looks back down at blunt. He needs to stop being a pussy. He ends up having to bury any logic and the majority of his common sense in order to reach out and take it. He’s never smoked anything before so after his first hit, he chokes. 

Richie laughs at him.

“Just inhale it like you’re breathing." He says. Eddie glares at him, feeling kind of embarrassed. 

They sit in the grass, and it takes a few passes before Eddie starts to feel anything at all. He didn’t know he had expectations until he realizes that they are not met. He feels much heavier. 

“How do you feel?” 

“Kind of like a brick.” Eddie replies. Richie looks at him.

“A brick?” 

Richie’s about to pass it to him but pulls it out of Eddie’s reach last second.

“Eh, I think you’ve had enough.” 

“Why? Am I acting weird?” Eddie asks. He doesn't think he so. But he’s also high, and he’s heard that being high affects your perception. 

“Nah, it’s just best to not overdo it. ” 

Eddie decides that if an enemy is telling him he’s better off low balling it then he’s going to go ahead and believe it. He already doesn't feel like himself anyway.

Eddie starts to stare at Richie. He thinks Richie looks very solid sitting in the grass next to him. Like if he hit him, he'll break his hand. Eddie wonders if it’s because of the way he holds himself; like he’s always got something rough and tough and mean on his mind. 

He isn't acting any different than he normally does, so Eddie says, 

“Do you smoke a lot?” 

“I don’t go out much so I never have the chance.” 

“Me either," Eddie says twisting his fingers into the grass brushing against his thigh. “Not that I would if I could,” he explains. “I’m not a drug addict.” 

Any leftover firmness in Richie’s features softens and his eyes crinkle when he smiles.

 

“I can see that." He says. Eddie sighs.

“Who would have thought this is where I’d end up,” Eddie blurts, looking at the sky. “Sitting here, smoking a doobie, with my arch nemesis.”

“Life’s crazy like that,” Richie says dully. 

“Punch me in the face? For old times sake?” 

That makes Richie laugh, “Only with your permission.” 

“Ha- that never stopped you before.” 

“You’re absolutely right." He leans over and gently shoves Eddie on the shoulder. Eddie hardly moves.

“That was a pussy move.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that shit two years ago,” Richie says. 

“Two years ago you’d knock my teeth out before I’d have the chance.” 

Richie doesn’t respond and Eddie glances over at him. Richie isn’t smiling anymore. 

“What? Too real for you?” Eddie jabs, it pulls Richie’s gaze sideways and their eyes meet. 

“Nah I’m just reminiscing in the good ole days.” Richie says. He smiles but it doesn't pull up enough at the corners to qualify as a real one. 

“You’re funny." Eddie’s voice is flat like he doesn’t actually find him funny. Richie suddenly starts to laugh.

“Are you cold or are you just high? You’re shaking pretty bad.” 

Eddie hadn’t noticed. He looks down at himself and Richie laughs again. 

“Uh, both I guess," he says.

Richie gets to his feet and then extends a hand in Eddie’s direction. 

“Let’s go inside.” He suggests. Eddie stares up at him for a moment before he eventually takes Richie's hand. He lets Richie pull him up and doesn’t do much to help him. “Jesus,” Richie says, struggling to get him to his feet. 

Something about standing up makes the world lurch forward. He thought he felt high before, but now he thinks the feeling may have just eaten him entirely.

“Was there just an earthquake?” 

Richie laughs, “Yeah, now hurry up before the ground splits and you fall in.” 

When they get inside, Eddie says, 

“I’m hungry."

They go into the kitchen where Matt’s pantry offers them a variety of canned vegetables and sugarless cereal. They’d been beaten to all the good stuff. Richie finds empty boxes of snack cakes and potato chips laying on a mound of trash ballooning above the rim of the trashcan.

Eddie finds an instant cornbread mix behind a box of macaroni and spends three minutes begging Richie to make it for him. Richie only agrees because he’s afraid that Eddie will set the kitchen on fire.

Richie finds a bowl, dumps the mix in and then opens the fridge for an egg and some milk. He pulls them out and then just as he’s about to let the refrigerator door fall close, he catches a glimpse of a can of whipped cream sitting in the side compartment. He quickly snatches it, pops off the lid, tilts his head back and sprays until whipped cream is foaming out at the edges of his mouth. 

He swallows it, sets the can on the table and resumes making Eddie’s cornbread. 

Eddie climbs up onto the counter and watches him in silence. Richie works quietly, like he’s really trying to concentrate. It only takes him a few minutes to whisk everything together and spread the batter into a pan. He’s done before the oven is even preheated so they have to wait to put it in. During this time, Richie digests a couple more huffs of whipped cream. 

“Sorry, I’m being rude, do you wanna hit this?” Richie asks offering the can over to Eddie.

“Okay." Eddie says, but instead of handing him the can of whipped cream, Richie draws it back and takes a step forward. He uses his free hand to place to finger under Eddie’s chin and push his head back slightly. 

“Say ah,” Richie instructs, his voice low and his expression firm.

Eddie opens his mouth as he continues to stare down into Richie’s face. Holding Eddie’s gaze with his own, Richie presses his finger down on the nozzle and the whipped cream fills Eddie's mouth. Richie doesn’t over do it like would Eddie expect him too; instead, he pulls back when the right amount has been dispensed and Eddie’s able to swallow it without any trouble. After a couple of seconds, Richie’s fingers are still touching his face. Eddie doesn’t even realize it until Richie’s removing them and taking a step back.

“Good shit, huh?” 

“Definitely,” Eddie responses, “we should put it on top of the cornbread.” 

“I like the way you think.” 

-

Eddie’s mom always told him he wasn’t allowed to have a dog, but when Beverly’s collie gives birth to a shit ton of puppies and all but one is adopted, he just has to take him. 

He doesn’t tell his mom for two weeks. The puppy stays in his room and Eddie names him Scout. He’s always wanted a dog called Scout. 

One day during Spring break, his mother walks into his room without knocking and finds Eddie and Scout on the floor. Eddie’s doing his homework and Scout is taking a nap. 

“Eddie,” she says. Eddie looks up at her. “Why is there a dog in here?” 

“Oh,” Eddie replies, looking over at Scout. “This is my dog. His name is Scout.” 

Eddie’s mother stares at him as if he’d just introduced her to an alien. 

“I don’t even know what to say right now,” she says. 

“There’s nothing you can do to separate us. I will hate you for the rest of my life if you even try.” 

Eddie doesn’t know how he did it, but Scout gets to stay. 

-

Ben immediately falls in love with Scout. Bill doesn’t like animals, but eventually, Scout sways him and Eddie smiles when Bill pats his knees and calls him over for the first time. 

They’re in Eddie’s room. Eddie and Bill are on the bed and Ben’s on the floor with Scout. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Ben says out of nowhere. Bill automatically starts to laugh. Ben rolls his eyes and moans, “shut up.” 

“What are we not laughing at?” Eddie asks. 

“I want to ask Beverly to the dance.” 

Eddie was not expecting that. Neither was Bill. 

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Bill says, “She’s probably got diseases.” 

“Shut up Bill,” Ben says and there’s something serious in the way he says it. Bill doesn’t seem to care.

“No, really. She’s not going to say yes.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

“Uh, yes I do. You’re too young and too soft. Not her type.” 

Ben’s looking a little pink and Eddie’s feeling bad for him. He also wants to tell Bill to shut the fuck up, but he also knows there's some truth to what he's saying.

“What do you think Eddie?” 

Even though Bill’s being a dick, Eddie knows that he is probably right. Still, putting it nicely doesn't make it any easier, especially when Ben’s looking at him like that. 

“I- Ben, honestly… you know how Beverly is. I don’t think it’s smart to get involved in something like that.” 

Now Ben looks a little defeated and Eddie feels like shit, but he knows it'd be worse if Ben poked around where he didn’t belong. Beverly doesn’t know how to treat people sometimes.

“Whatever,” he says before he turns around. He picks Scout up and forces him to sit in his lap. Scout doesn’t mind. 

“I’m sorry, Ben.” 

“No, it was a stupid idea. I know it was.” 

Eddie hates when Ben’s upset. 

-

 

Beverly gets drunk too often and she goes to too many high school parties.

Beverly knows how to talk in a way where she gets the most out of people. She doesn’t find it difficult going up to good looking boys who wear expensive shoes and asking to hit off their joints. Eddie’s watched her do it. 

Eddie’s not big on parties, but Beverly loves them and Eddie likes being her friend. He goes to five parties that year.

During one of them, he watches Richie tangle himself in a fight with some sophomore who has a funny walk and a nasally voice. They’re both drunk and Eddie doesn’t know who starts it, but a bulky looking guy named Chaz ends it. 

“Really Robby? You’re gonna hit up on a fucking kid?” Chaz says. He shoves Robby's chest and Robby stumbles back. His face is bleeding, but Richie's is bleeding more. A few minutes after the fight ends, Richie finds Eddie in the crowd and asks him for help. 

After they find a bathroom, Eddie flings the door open and Richie’s having a rough time. He can’t keep upright so Eddie helps him sit down on the toilet seat. He rummages around through the medicine cabinet, looking for some peroxide and a bandage. 

Richie is cut just above his eyebrow and when Eddie starts to clear away all the blood, he says, 

“That’s going to scar.” 

“I don’t care," Richie says and it’s sloshed together, barely even sounding like words. 

“Are you going to be sick?” 

“Probably.” 

“Well, please wait until I leave.” Eddie says throwing the bloodied towel into the hamper next to the bathtub. He opens the drawer and pulls out a package of cotton pads. He douses one with the peroxide and presses it to the open gash on Richie’s face. Richie hisses and pulls back but Eddie doesn’t let up. 

“Why are you helping me?” Richie’s eyes are closed and he looks very pale. 

“You asked me to.” 

“You’re so…good," Richie sounds really weird and Eddie wishes he would stop talking. “I’m so sorry.” 

Eddie doesn’t ask why he’s apologizing, he doesn’t really care. 

When Eddie goes to pull his hand away Richie reaches up and grabs it. Eddie stares down at him and waits until he finally opens his eyes to look back up. His eyes are red and sad. 

Eddie pulls away. 

“Stop being an idiot. Don’t fight people bigger than you,” he says. 

“Don’t leave.” Richie mumbles slumping down. He grabs onto the counter like he’ll slip to the floor without it. 

“Shut up.” Eddie says. He puts away the supplies he used and opens the door. 

“Eddie.” Richie says. Eddie turns around to look at him. “I’m really sorry.” 

-

The last month of eighth grade goes by very slowly. 

Bill continues to date girls, Beverly continues to party, Ben continues to float and Eddie continues to exist.

During the last month of eighth grade, something happens to Richie. 

Eddie doesn’t exactly know what- no one does- but Richie’s out for a good week and a half, and when he comes back, his arm is in a sling and there is a bruise running from the arch of his eyebrow down to the top of his cheek bone. Eddie’s never seen a bruise look like that. 

He wants to ask him about it; so, he does. 

It’s Richie’s first day back and it’s during their lunch period when both of them are in the library. Eddie had to print a paper and Richie’s sitting alone with a pile of makeup work in front of him. 

When Eddie’s done doing what he needs to do, he walks over to Richie’s table. He realizes that Richie hasn’t even got a pencil. He’s just sitting there, doing nothing. He doesn’t even look up when Eddie approaches him.

“Hey," Eddie says. 

“Hi," Richie sounds smaller than normal and Eddie’s already regretting his decision to come over. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, feeling awkward. Usually, Richie wants to talk to him. 

Richie is still staring at his hands when he says, “Yeah.”

And that’s all he says.

Eddie says, "Okay." He walks away.

After that, they don’t talk again for three years.


	8. Richie

Part 2

Richie. 

Twelfth Grade. 

Richie hates when his father tries to cook anything other than a pot roast. A pot roast is easy to make. All he'd have to do is grab a pot, fill it with some meat, some carrots, potatoes and maybe some onions. Pop that bitch in the crock pot, turn it on and let it sit for a long time. Richie isn’t sure how long but he knows when he comes home from school, it’s still cooking. 

It tastes good. Richie likes when his father makes pot roasts. He just doesn’t like when he tries to make anything else. 

They’re in the living room and Richie’s sitting on the sofa. He’s only taken four bites from the bowl of dumplings sitting in his lap. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with it. He doesn’t know if there’s too much salt or not enough garlic powder or if it hadn’t been cooked properly. Richie doesn’t know much about cooking, but he does know when something doesn’t taste good. 

His dad doesn’t seem to notice. He puts it away with ease, shovels that shit in, no problem. Richie watches him for a few minutes, wondering if he really likes it or he’s just eating fast enough to not know the difference. 

Richie looks over at the TV. He doesn’t really care about basketball, but his dad definitely does. He cares about it a lot. He shouts when his team scores and shouts when they don’t. Richie’s father shouts when he cares about shit.

Richie stirs his dumplings as if it would make them disappear. He takes another bite and tries to pretend it’s something else. That doesn’t work.

He looks up just in time see the other team score. Richie cares so little about the game that he has to glance at the stats in order to know who’s even playing. 

His father’s spoon is halfway to his mouth when he drops it back into the bowl to shout,

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” 

Later, after the game ends in Richie's father's favor, Richie sneaks into the kitchen and dumps the rest of his dinner down the garbage disposal. They’re still sitting in the living room. 

“You still plan on joining the basketball team this year?” His father asks him. Richie only said he would because he knew it’d make his dad happy. 

“Yeah.” He replies. Richie used to play basketball in middle school. He’d been on the seventh and eighth grade team and it had been a lot of fun. There wasn’t a real reason why he quit. 

His dad smiles at him and leans deeper into his recliner, so far that he can prop his feet up. He looks over at the TV and thumbs the remote a couple of times. He leaves it on a show about house renovations. 

“We should go to the courts so I can give you a couple lessons.” 

Richie’s dad had been the captain of the basketball team when he was in high school. During that time in his life, basketball had given him a lot of things: discipline, leadership, community. He’d told Richie that he’d been lost before that, that he had few friends, little recognition and not much of a purpose. Then he joined the basketball team, and when it turned out he was actually good, things got better for him. It only makes sense that he’d want that for Richie. 

“Sounds good,” Richie says.

“You excited for school tomorrow?” 

Tomorrow is the first day of Richie’s last year of high school. Maybe he would be excited if it weren’t for that predisposed notion that high school is supposed to suck. When he thinks about high school, he’s conditioned to think about all the shitty things that surround it. 

“I’m excited that it’s the last first day,” he responds. 

“Well...that’s something." His dad doesn’t sound very concerned, like he’d only asked because that’s what you’re supposed to do when it’s your kids last first day of high school. 

“What time is it?” Richie wonders out loud. His father glances down at his watch. 

“Almost ten.” 

Richie stands up and stretches his arms over his head. “I’m gonna go to bed.” 

“Okay." His father says but his attention is already stolen by the T.V. Richie doesn’t even make it into the hallway before his father’s calling him back. “I forgot to tell you. Friday night I’m going to be staying at Sharron’s, so I won’t be home. I’ll leave you a roast but you have to remember to turn the pot off before it burns.” 

Richie smiles. 

“I will.” 

-

The next morning Richie wakes up to the sound of shitty music playing through his shitty alarm clock. It isn’t too hard to pull himself out of bed and dress himself like he knows it will be in a few weeks. The beginning of the year is always easier.

His dad often lets Richie drive his old truck; he claims that he’s become too accustomed to driving around in his patrol car to use it much anymore.

The drive to school takes three minutes but Richie wishes it would take longer. He likes driving sometimes.

He got his schedule in the mail last Tuesday and he looks at it before he gets out of the car, and then again when he’s walking through the hallway. His first class is Anatomy.

When he makes it over to the school, a girl called Liz holds the door open for him. He says thank you and Liz smiles at him. He does not smile back. 

The senior hallway is the first hallway in the school, the most convenient place to have a locker because it’s in the center of everything. Only seniors have lockers in the senior hallway. That's why it's called the senior hallway. 

Richie’s locker is number 101 and it takes him three tries to get his combination right, not because he’s stupid, but because the lock kept sticking. 

His schedule looks like this: 

Anatomy  
English  
Pre-calc  
Study hall  
Lunch  
Government  
Psychology  
Art

He goes to all of those classes in that order and it’s very boring.

His Pre-calc teacher is kinda funny, so at least that will make the class a little more bearable. 

His English class is filled with some of the worse people in his grade, so at least he won’t be pegged with any expectations. 

His Psychology teacher seems pretentious and his Government teacher used to be a lawyer. 

In Art class he sits next to a boy named Eddie who he was never very nice too. 

-

Sharron has made Richie’s dad a happier guy, so Richie has no reason to dislike her. 

Sharron has red hair and a thyroid problem that makes her shit blood sometimes. Richie found that out the hard way. 

Sharron’s last name is Marsh. She has a daughter named Beverly. 

Beverly is in Richie’s grade and not many people like her. He’s heard a lot of bad talk about her and once a girl spray painted a red A on her locker because she’d fucked one of their boyfriends. Richie thought that was a fair trade. 

Personally, he doesn’t hate Beverly. He kind of likes her even though he does think she’s bitch. She makes way to many jokes about him having no friends for it to be funny and sometimes he wishes she wasn’t so obnoxiously outgoing. 

It is true that Richie doesn’t have very many friends and if he were to count how many on his fingers, he probably wouldn’t need a whole hand. 

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays he works at the convenience store down the street. He wouldn’t mind working more but during the school year his father wants him to have time to study. He doesn’t like arguing with his dad. 

There’s a manager called Rae who sports a fairly large beer belly and gotye that makes him look older than he is. He doesn’t own the place, but most people think he does. Richie would say that Rae just barely makes it onto his singular hand of friends. 

Rae’s an objectionaly funny guy, but it really just depends on your sense of humor. He makes a lot of comments about customers under his breath and occasionally it makes Richie laugh.

Rae’s also an alcoholic. But, he’s a functioning alcoholic. He’s usually drunk at work, and at home, and when he’s driving or doing anything. really. There aren’t very many situations where he isn’t drunk. Richie’s never seen him drink anything other than a beer. 

The first day of school fell on a Wednesday so when the last bell rings, he goes to work. The convenience store is called Mike’s. There’s no one named Mike associated with the store so Richie has no idea where the name came from.

Mike’s is a small place. If you take Richie’s kitchen and his living room and combine them into one, it’d probably be the size of that. They sell the essentials: booze, tampons and snacks. They sell more booze than anything else. Richie’s only seventeen so he shouldn’t be allowed to ring up alcohol; Rae lets him do it anyways. 

Richie’s work uniform is a red tee shirt and whatever pair of jeans he decides to wear that day. Before he gets out of his father’s truck, he slips his blue tee shirt over his head and pulls his red one on. 

When he walks up to Mike’s, he notices that the apostrophe in the sign above the store that spells Mike’s, is gone. He does not understand why the kids around the neighbourhood find it funny to steal property from small, struggling businesses. He pushes through the doors and listens for the bell above him to chime. 

When you first walk in, and if you turn to the right, you will see the checkout counter, and if you turn to the left, you will see rows and rows of fatty foods and an array of different medicines that do the exact same thing. Richie turns right and hops over the counter. There’s an employee gate if you walk a little farther down, but he never uses it. Rae says he looks slick when he jumps over the counter like that.

Richie clocks in on the old shitty computer that’s set up just above the register. It doesn’t work half the time but today it loads up even faster than usual. The store is empty and Richie doesn’t see Rae anywhere. He pushes the back door open and makes his way into the break room. 

Rae’s back there sleeping. He must be drunker than normal. 

Richie leaves him there and goes back out front. 

He stands around on his phone for about an hour. The hour is mostly uneventful, except when Steve comes in for his daily pack of cigarettes. Steve’s forty-two and smokes Menthol 100s. 

When Richie’s bored of standing, he unfolds the crappy folding chair that’s propped up against the wall and sits down. He plays on his phone for a little while longer until Rae emerges from the breakroom and unfolds the second folding chair next to him. 

“You know people can just steal shit when no one’s here to check them out, right?” Richie asks.

“Relax, I knew you were coming in.” Rae responds. He slumps back and kicks his feet up on the second shelf hiding inside the checkout counter. “Anyone buy anything while I was out?” 

“Just Steve.” 

“You know Steve was diagnosed with lung cancer last week.” Rae says. He then takes a swig of his beer. 

“Oh shit.” Richie says. “We should probably stop selling him cigarettes.” 

“Steve’s a divorced man who isn’t allowed to see his kids. He doesn’t want to live.”

“I guess you have a point.” 

The bell chimes and they both glance over in time to watch a girl walk in. Richie thinks she looks familiar and figures that she probably goes to the same school as him, but he isn’t able to place her name.

Rae licks his lips and elbows Richie in the side. Rae has a thing for teenage girls. Everyone has their faults. 

Richie stands up so that he’s the one to ring her out. She stands in the candy aisle where he watches her pick up a KitKat bar and then a Reese's. She looks back and forth between the two of them a couple of times before putting the kitkat back. Richie would have made the same decision. 

She turns towards the front of the store and catches Richie staring. When Richie doesn’t look away, she smiles at him and approaches the counter. 

“Hey Richie,” she says casually and it makes him feel a little bad that he doesn’t know her name. 

“Hey." He greets. She tosses the candy onto the counter in front of him. He picks it up to run it under scanner. 

“Could I also get a tropical fusion swisher?” she asks. He looks up at her. 

“You got an ID?” 

“Sure.” She says. She digs into her purse and then picks out her driver's license. She hands it to him. He only glances at it long enough to see a couple numbers and then gives it back. She’s eighteen so she must be in his grade.

He turns around, walks past Rae then skims over the swishers until he finds her flavor. He scans it then slides it over to her. She pays with a five and says,

“Keep the change.” 

He thanks her with a nod and closed lipped smile. In return, she gives him one with teeth. 

“Bye,” he says. 

“Bye,” she replies and then she leaves. 

A few seconds later, Rae says, “Wow...all that sexual tension made me hard.” Richie makes a face.

“That’s disgusting.” 

“It’s disgusting that you didn’t ask for her number.” 

“I didn’t know her name.” 

“The fuck kind of an excuse is that? I don’t know the names of half the women I’ve slept with.” 

Richie sighs and sits back down. 

“The apostrophe’s gone,” he says trying to change the subject. 

“What? Jesus christ- again?” Rae huffs like he actually cares. “Samuel's not going to be happy about that.” 

Samuel’s the real owner of the store. He owns an abundance of gas stations and mini marts around the area. Richie once saw him wear a suit that costs more than his father’s truck. That means he makes a lot of money. There’s no way in hell it comes from just Mike’s. 

“Can you believe he blamed that shit on me last time?” Rae says scratching his stomach. He drains what’s left of his beer and then bends over to grab another one from the six pack sitting in the corner.

“Yes, I do believe that. You were probably sleeping.” 

A total of ten people come in during Richie’s six hour shift and when the six hours are over, he goes home. 

-

The first week of school isn’t anything special. Nothing really happens. 

Except for on Wednesday. 

He has Art last period and he’s surrounded by Freshmen. He’s one of the two Seniors in the class. Eddie is the other Senior.

The tables are set up in pairs, so it only makes sense that Mrs. Venture would seat them together. 

They don’t talk at all for the first two days and Richie doesn’t necessarily find it awkward, but it looks like Eddie’s making an effort to not look in his direction, so Richie can’t help but feel a little conflicted over it. 

Then on Wednesday, Mrs. Venture tells them to look at the person next to them and draw them. 

Eddie has no choice now. 

They turn their heads at the same time to look at one another. Eddie sighs. 

Mrs. Venture passes out some paper. 

Richie hasn’t drawn in awhile and thinking about drawing Eddie makes him kind of nervous. Eddie’s face has a lot of angles.

Mrs. Venture never explains how to go about drawing this portrait, even though that would probably be useful information to have. Richie later learns that Mrs.Venture is not the best art teacher. 

Richie doesn’t know how to make a face look realistic, so he works with what he does know. He comes up with an outline of a face and then scribbles in a mess for hair because the thinks it would look cool. It vaguely resembles Eddie.

Richie takes up the entire thirty minutes they were given. Eddie’s done in ten. 

When Mrs. Venture tells them to trade papers, Richie realizes that Eddie doesn’t possess any artistic abilities at all. Richie’s head is a circle with eyes, a nose and a mouth. There’s some curl in his hair but that’s the only feature that would distinguish him from anybody else. 

“This actually looks good.” Eddie says when he looks at Richie’s drawing. His voice sounds new to Richie, like he’s never even heard it before. They look at each other. 

“Thanks, your's is- uh…” Richie doesn’t like lying about stuff like this because it makes him seem like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Eddie’s drawing looks like shit and to lie and say that it doesn’t, would be giving up his credibility as someone who can tell the difference between things that look like shit and things that don’t. 

“Yeah. I know what it is.” Eddie says flatly. He slaps his hand over it and slides it back onto his side of the table. Then he picks Richie’s up and gives it back to him. 

They sign their names at the top and turn them in. 

That happened on Wednesday. It was the only thing during the whole week that Richie found worth remembering.


	9. Richie

Twelfth Grade. 

 

On Friday, Richie’s dad doesn’t come home, just like he said. 

Richie likes being home alone. He gets to sit in his father's recliner, take his pants off and watch reruns of stupid sitcoms that aren’t actually funny. It’s relaxing. 

What’s not relaxing is the ‘buzz’ ‘buzz’ underneath his thigh every four seconds, and because of the simple fact that it’s annoying him, he doesn’t look to see who it is. Which turns out to be a mistake. 

Beverly shows up at his house exactly five minutes after his phone finally goes silent. She has a key to the back door.

Richie almost shits his pants when he sees her standing in the kitchen’s archway. She’s leaning up against the wall as if she’s been watching him for a while. She’s wearing a dress and her hair is curled. 

Richie says, 

“I’m not wearing any pants.” 

“Well you should probably put some on," Beverly stands up straighter, she’s wearing heels too. “We have a party to attend.”

“I haven’t showered in two days.”

“Some girls are into that.”

“I’m not going.” 

Forty-five minutes later they pull up to a house that’s one of the ugliest shades of green Richie’s ever seen. 

“Who owns this house?” Richie asks. Beverly parks her Minivan in the most convenient place she can find and takes the keys out of the ignition. 

“I don’t know him. I think his name is Earl.” 

“I’m going flick Earl in the eye.” 

“Why?” 

“What do you mean why? It looks like someone painted this house with vomit.” 

“You watch too much HGTV.” 

They get out of the van and Richie instantly smells something weird. He picks up the collar of his shirt and puts it up to his nose. He inhales, making sure that it’s not him. It isn’t.

“What’s that smell?” he asks, and then approximately two seconds later, his question is answered when he steps in a puddle of actual vomit. “Are you fucking serious?” he groans, looking down. 

Beverly laughs at him, “That would only happen to you.” 

Richie doesn’t like that response. He takes Beverly by the shoulders and jerks her sideways so that the sole of her shoe is also covered in vomit.

“Richie!” Beverly squeals. She shoves him away by his shoulder and jumps forward. “These shoes are fucking expensive!” 

Richie smiles the whole walk up to the house. 

Richie doesn’t go to parties very often, but he’s gone to enough to know that he doesn’t like being inside of this house. 

He follows Beverly through the breezeway and spots a mound of shoes piled up to the left of the entrance. There’s probably vomit wormed into the crevices in his sneakers but he still doesn’t take them off. Sometimes, he’s an asshole.

When they join everyone in the living room, the first thing Richie sees is a couple of tough looking guys sniffing out a few lines of coke. That makes his mouth dry. 

The guys make these loud gorilla grunts before they jump into the air and high five each other. It makes Richie feel embarrassed to be a dude. 

Beverly’s already across the room, talking to a boy named Luciano. Richie makes his way over to them.

Luciano is one of the only non-white people who attends Perth high school. In the past, Beverly told Richie that she has sex with Luciano sometimes. Richie doesn’t know much about him, other than he works in a clothing store and sells pot on the weekends. Richie watches him hand Beverly a joint. 

Beverly doesn’t light it right away, she drops it into the side compartment of her purse. When Luciano turns his head, he catches Richie watching them. He smiles at him. 

“Hey man." Luciano says before he goes in for a handshake-fist bump thing. Richie has never had to perform a handshake-fist bump thing with Luciano before. He has learned from past experience that there are some unspoken rules when it comes to trendy handshakes like this and Richie knows very few of them. He moves his hand one way and Luciano moves his the other. It’s weird, but Luciano pretends like it isn’t and Richie has no other choice but to do the same. What else can you do?

By the time Richie looks over, he’s lost Beverly. 

Luciano leans into the open space surrounding Richie and makes sure to talk over the music as he says, “Want some E?” 

Richie doesn’t hesitate to say, “Nah I’m good." Luciano nods, smiles and moves on to the next lonely guy who he may or may not have better luck with.

A girl named Sandra, who Richie once slept with, approaches him with a drink in each hand. She hands him one of them. 

“Hey, stranger." She says, giving him a ditzy smile. He tips his head in return and accepts the drink. 

“Hey.” 

“You never come out anymore.” 

Maybe he’s slept with Sandra a couple of times. 

“Oh, yeah, I’ve just been busy.” It isn’t true but Sandra would never know that. Sandra attends St. Joan of Arc, a Catholic school that has an alarming tuition of one thousand dollars a month. She has straight A’s and both of her parents are surgeons. Richie has always found it strange that she likes to spend her time at dingy house parties with public school boys who sometimes forget to shower. He supposes it has something to do with rebellion.

“That’s too bad.” Sandra says. They don’t talk for much longer after that because Richie spots Beverly trudging back into the room with a pest breathing over her shoulder. She doesn’t look happy and Bill looks drunk. 

She stops abruptly and turns around to say something. Bill’s face contorts, and now he looks angry. Richie decides to step in. 

As Richie saunters up to them, Bill doesn’t take his eyes off of Beverly, not even when Richie takes Beverly by the arm and pulls her back, putting some space between them. Bill watches her as if he’s a lion and she’s an antelope. Richie has no other choice but to play the zoo keeper. 

Bill starts to roar, “Why don’t you fuck off Richie?” 

“I’d love to." Richie says gripping onto Beverly’s arm a little harder. He tugs her back across the room and into the hallway. Surprisingly, Bill doesn’t follow them. Richie has always thought Bill was an asshole. 

“Thanks," Beverly says sounding a little wore out. 

“Sure.” He leans back against a picture frame hanging on the wall. Earl and his grandmother disappear behind him. 

“I didn’t know he was going to be here.”

Richie shrugs, “You know the risk. Bill’s always at a party.” Richie thinks Bill might be an alcoholic, or at least close to becoming one. The amount of empty bottles Richie’s seen him accumulate per party is unholy. Beverly thinks it has something to do with his dead brother. 

About two hours later, Richie’s in the kitchen and everyone’s playing spin the bottle. Walking into the scene makes him feel like he’s in the seventh grade again.

The bottle is flipped onto its side in the center of Earl’s kitchen island and there are at least eight people crowded around it. Richie is wedged in between a girl who smells like tequila and the tallest boy he’s ever seen. 

It’s Luciano's turn and when he rips it, the nozzle of the bottle points at Richie. Luciano shakes his head and puts his hands up, “Aye, I’m not a faggot."

He doesn’t look at Richie, not even glance, and it’s not that Richie offended- he doesn’t really care. He knows there are some lines that guys just don’t cross. 

Richie spins it and it lands on a kid named Gregory. He flashes a smile at Gregory.

Richie walks over to him and grabs him by the shoulder and then by the back of his neck with his other hand. Richie pushes their faces together. Everyone goes wild. 

Richie doesn’t shy from Gregory’s tongue or the heat that comes with it. Gregory tastes like orange juice, which is nice, citrus has never bothered Richie. People are still screaming when they pull apart. Richie can’t help but look over at Luciano.

Luciano’s tan cheeks are a shade more magenta.

“Jesus Richie, can we go to dinner or something?” Gregory asks. A few people laugh and Richie shrugs, 

“Sorry. I’m not a faggot.”

A few hours after that, everyone has either gone home or has passed out somewhere. Richie is still fairly drunk and he thinks Beverly might have left him alone in this vomit colored house. He’s currently looking for an open space to shut down for the night.

The floor is littered with bodies and every cushioned surface is taken, so eventually Richie wanders upstairs. He starts to open any unlocked door he comes across.

“Richie?” someone says from behind him. He turns around and it’s Luciano. 

Luciano looks kind of small from the way he’s staring up at Richie. 

“Oh, hey.” Richie says. There’s a beat of silence then Luciano nods at the door in front of them. 

“You mind?” he asks. Richie shakes his head and steps out of the way, and Luciano moves past him. He puts his hand on the door knob and starts to turn it.

“Is that room empty? You care if I sleep on the floor?” Richie asks. 

“Sure.” Luciano’s voice is thin sounding. He opens the door and Richie follows him in. 

The room is empty and the bed is huge. Richie walks over to it and steals a pillow. He holds the pillow to his chest and trails over to a soft looking rug in the middle of the room. Luciano slides between the comforter and the sheets, and just as Richie’s about to drop down onto the floor, Luciano says, “You can sleep in the bed too… if you want.”

He sounds soft and a little hesitant. Richie gazes over at him. It’s dark, but he can still see Luciano peeking up at him from underneath the blankets. 

Richie strides over to the opposite side of the bed. “You sure?” he asks. 

“Uh- yeah.”

Richie doesn’t ask again. He gets into the bed. 

They say nothing for at least ten minutes and Richie assumes Luciano’s gone to sleep. But then the bed dips and Luciano moves closer to him.

There had been some speculation, but Richie gets it now. 

Luciano is very shy when shifting in Richie’s direction. Richie turns his head to look at him and the attention makes Luciano go still, as if he’d just now realized Richie’s aware of what he’s doing. Richie doesn’t push anything and when Luciano’s ready to kiss him, Richie lets him. 

It’s very short and he pulls away to ask, “Is that okay?” 

“Yeah.” 

They kiss some more and Richie’s already hard.

When he takes his shirt off, Luciano does too. Richie makes a lot of first moves and it’s obvious that Luciano’s never done anything with a guy before. Richie can feel that he’s held back by hesitation- like he’s not sure how to make Richie feel good, like he’s scared he’s doing it wrong.

Richie teaches him. They don’t say anything.

 

Before, he’d never found Luciano attractive, but seeing him like this, shy and attentive and so eager to please him; it makes Richie a little crazy. 

Then he senses Luciano shutting down when Richie’s hands start to travel lower and lower. 

“Is that okay?” Richie asks. Luciano doesn’t say anything for a while, but then he nods his head against the crook of Richie’s neck and affirms it with a small ‘yes'. 

After they’re both tired and sweaty, Luciano moves back to his side of the bed and there’s something in the quietness and the long space between them that makes Richie think Luciano might feel bad about what they had just done.

Richie rolls over onto his side. He wishes he could take a shower but instead, he just looks at a picture frame sitting on the bedside table. Richie can only assume the people in the picture are Earl’s parents. They’re smiling and standing in front of their puke colored home, holding each other’s hands tightly. Richie stares at them until he falls asleep.

-

Samuel is not happy about the missing apostrophe. He blames Rae. 

Richie’s in the middle of ringing someone out when Samuel and Rae emerge from the break room. They’re both frowning. 

Today Samuel isn’t wearing a suit like he was the last time Richie saw him; instead, he’s dressed down a pair of khakis and a striped polo shirt that’s tucked beneath his belt. Still an outfit that could probably pay off Richie’s truck.

“I spend more money a month on this place than I make off it in an entire year." Samuel says before he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose between his index finger and his thumb. He’s the only person Richie’s ever seen do that in real life. 

“Money means nothing when a place has character.” Rae tries. 

Richie rips the receipt from the till and hands it to the customer. He says, ‘you have a good one'. The man ignores him and leaves. 

Samuel sighs and then puts a few papers on the counter, "Dunbar will be back to replace it on Tuesday.” He looks at Richie like he’s trying to remember his name. He gives up a couple seconds in and just offers him a nod of acknowledgement. Richie nods back and it makes him feel formal and adult-like.

When Samuel leaves a few minutes later, Rae plops down in his fold up chair and cracks open a beer. 

“You think he’ll shut us down?” Richie asks sitting down next to him.

“I don’t know," he replies, “The only reason he hasn’t yet is because this was the first shop he’s ever owned.” 

“Really?” Richie’s surprised he hadn’t known that. A lot more things make sense now. “I wouldn’t have pegged him as a sentimental guy.” 

“Neither would I.” 

Rae stands up, unlatches the half gate, and walks over to the long wall of refrigerators. He paces back and forth in front of the beer cave, eventually stopping to stare through the glass door. Richie can tell by the way his face is contorted that the decision is really troubling him

He finally pops the door open, bends over and pulls out a pack of Corona. Richie hadn’t been expecting that. 

“Corona?” Richie asks after Rae’s made it halfway over to the register. He drops the pack onto the counter with a huff, as if carrying it had been too strenuous for him. 

“Thought I’d switch it up.” 

Richie grabs the Corona by the side handles and slides it off the counter. He kicks the empty Skol box out of Rae’s ‘six pack corner’ and puts the Corona pack in its place. He straightens up and turns to watch Rae walk over to the snack shelf and grab a zinger. Richie hates zingers. 

When Rae returns to his seat, he peels back the wrapper of his zinger, caps the top off a Corona and middle mans the both of them.

“You know, I used to be Samuel’s boss.” Rae says before swiping his tongue over the frosting in the corner of his mouth. “It was probably around fifteen years ago. He was a cashier much like yourself- actually come to think of it, you’ve always reminded me of him.” 

Richie wonders if Rae only thinks that because they’d both been teenage male cashiers. Rae’s memory isn’t the greatest and fifteen years is a long time. He’s also always drunk. 

“Cool.” Richie says. If there’s any truth in that, maybe one day Richie will be rich and successful too. 

“When Anthony- the old owner- got sick, Samuel tapped into his old man’s life insurance and bought the place. He really turned things around, kid had some skill,” Rae glances around the store. “It’s kinda gone back to shit.” 

“Well, with you as a manager-” 

“Watch it buddy, I’ll fire you.” 

“Sure you will.” 

-

Richie’s dad has a shitty day at work.

They usually eat dinner in the living room so they can watch TV together, but Richie's dad buys a pizza and sets it down on the table in the dining room. He puts two paper plates out and sits at the head of the table. Richie sits down next to him. 

“Couple'a hours ago, we picked up some kid around your age- boy was strung out on so much opium he didn’t know his own name. ” He stuffs at least three bites worth of pizza into his mouth all at once and then puts the crust off to the side of his plate. His dad never eats the crust.

“When his mom came down to the station to pick him up, she threw the biggest tantrum I’ve ever seen a grown woman throw.” His face is sour, like tapping into the memory spurted lemon juice all over his brain. “As if we just go around picking up random kids, trying to ruin their lives. It was ridiculous.” 

“Did you charge him with anything?” Richie asks. 

“We weren’t going to, but that women pissed me off so bad that I filed a report on him for ‘possession through consumption.’” 

“What was his name?” 

“Brady Bishop.” 

“Never heard of him.” That was sort of a lie. Brady Bishop is in the grade below him. Richie barely knows anything about him, other than that he’s done more acid on school property than anyone else in the district. 

“Good. I know that’s never going to be you, correct?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

That freaks him out a little. His dad is blatantly unaware of the partying tendencies that arise in him every so often, and just the thought of a house party gone wrong and his father sitting on street curb with the lights on top of his patrol car flashing and an awful expression on his face, is enough to make Richie feel sick. 

Richie knows very well that he would not be happy with him.

-

A month after the last first day of school, they’re assigned an Art project that tricks Richie into putting in some effort.

Mrs. Venture tells them to look at the person they’re sitting next to and say hello. She explains that one person will be creating a painted pattern with acrylics, and the other person will be making a gradient color collage via magazines. 

Richie thinks all of that is a little too complex for an Art I class. 

Mrs. Venture gives them the freedom to decide who will do what project, which Richie doesn’t really like. He looks over at Eddie.

Eddie’s slumped so far down in his chair, Richie thinks he’s going to the floor in the next couple seconds. He also looks very uninterested in what’s happening around him. It wouldn’t surprise Richie if he hadn't heard a word of what Mrs. Venture said. 

Apparently, he had, because around the time Richie estimated he should be falling to the floor, he pulls himself forward so that his elbows are on the table and his back is no longer pressed into his chair. He says, 

“I’ll do the collage.” He waits a second and then adds, “Seems like it’d require less skill. Right?”

“I guess." Richie replies. He knows Eddie doesn’t have a very good hand, but he’s not so sure about his eye for color. Mrs. Venture hadn’t said anything about working together on the projects, so he supposes he doesn’t really care. 

Richie starts thinking about patterns and the first thing to come to mind is the ugly patterned rug in his dad’s room. At least he knows what he doesn’t want his project to look like. 

Mrs. Venture tells them to use the rest of the period to brainstorm ideas. Richie doesn’t get how that’s fair. He has to come up with a whole ass concept and all Eddie has to do is decide on a few colors. Richie rips a piece of loose leaf from his notebook and starts drawing shapes. 

Eddie gets up and grabs a couple magazines. He flips through them before shoving one onto Richie’s side of the table in such a blunt way that it forces him to look down at it. Eddie’s pointing to the background of a perfume ad- t’s a gradient from orange to red. 

“Should I do blue to purple, or orange to red?” 

Richie wouldn’t say he’s shocked that Eddie’s asking him for an opinion, but it does leave him wordless for a couple seconds. Richie looks into Eddie’s face and Eddie meets his gaze. 

“Uh,” Richie says smoothly. 

Eddie continues to stare at him. 

“I mean, orange and red pieces would probably be easier to find since it’s the Fall time, but purple and blue would be cooler," Richie finally says and then feels obligated to add, "In my opinion.”

Richie doesn’t know how much Eddie actually cares about how cool his project looks. He knows that most of the kids are in here because they have to be, and that most of them will be doing the bare minimum.

But Eddie looks a little stuck on what he’s said, like he’s really taking it into consideration. Richie guesses he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t care. 

Richie doesn’t realize he’s staring at Eddie until he’s already got the curves of his face memorized. His hairs a little longer than Richie remembers and his eyes are darker. There’s a small scratch on his chin and a couple freckles fanning out around his nose. 

Eddie catches him staring. Richie looks away. 

-

Quinton texts him Sunday night and asks if he can help him babysit his neighbour's kid. Richie knows that’s just code for ‘I’m bored as fuck, bring some weed'.

Quinton is another friend in Richie’s very scarce intermediate circle. 

He drives over to Quinton’s. 

He forgets if it’s the house on the right of Quinton’s place that has the six dogs, or if it’s the one on the left. He knows which ever one it isn’t, is the home to an eight year old boy who probably weighs more than he does. 

He parks his truck in Quinton’s driveway and texts him. 

Richie hobbles up the stone pathway leading to the house on the left of Quinton’s. He looks around and sees that the bushes are so neatly kept it’s as if they were just trimmed today, and that there are a few tall trees scattered throughout the yard, yet no leaves on the ground. Richie thinks the people who live here must gargle motivation. 

When Richie steps up onto the porch, he notices that there is an outdoor sofa and a matching chair pushed up against the white siding of the house. 

Quinton opens the door before he has the chance to knock. 

“What kind of people have a couch outside?” Richie asks. He steps onto a welcoming mat that says ‘home sweet home,’ and Quinton steps to the side to let him in. 

“The same kind of people who have a cafetiere.” 

“What the fuck is that?” 

“I don’t know, but it’s in the kitchen and it looks fancy.” 

There’s a portion of the floor that’s tiled when you first step through the door. Richie’s about to walk off of it and onto the carpet when Quinton throws an arm out in front of him. 

“Shoes." He says. Richie lets out a hint of a snort and then kicks off his sneakers. 

“My bad, should have known.” 

“Yeah, stupid ass," Quinton replies and then walks into the hallway. 

Quinton goes to Hoover, Perth’s rival. Richie met him at a football game last year.

The night had been kind of cold and Richie had been sitting in the bleachers, far away from the student section with his dad. His dad insisted they go since it was the last game of the season and he figured Richie could use a little more school spirit. Richie hadn’t argued. 

Towards the middle of the game, his leg was cramping up and he wanted a pretzel. 

He used the ‘hidden’ path, the one that leads past the bathrooms and behind the bleachers because he hadn’t wanted anyone to talk to him. He’s lame like that sometimes.

Parallel to the stream of stepping stones laid out along the ‘hidden’ pathway, there was a fence lined with blown up pictures of the football team’s senior players. Richie never really paid those banners much attention, but as he was making his way down the trail, he spotted a sketchy looking boy in a black jacket with a hood pulled up over his face. That boy was Quinton. Quinton had been spray painting gigantic H’s over the faces of every senior player on Perth’s team. 

Richie stood back for a minute or two and watched him. Quinton hadn’t noticed he was standing there until Richie eventually stepped forward and said, “You got an extra can?” 

Quinton had visibly jumped and spun around. He looked less nervous, and more confused. Richie was about to repeat himself when Quinton turned around and walked over to a backpack laying in the grass a few feet away. He bent over and pulled out another can. 

He handed it to Richie and Richie said, “Thanks.” He then strided up to Kenneth Drake’s constipated looking face and shook the can.

Quinton watched him draw a penis on Kenneth’s face. 

“Dude’s a dick,” Richie had said.

He had once watched Kenneth drunkenly shove a girl into a wall. Another time, Kenneth beat up a Freshmen called Michael and pissed on him. Michael never came back to school. No one ever saw him again.

“Shit, I’m not being creative enough, am I?” 

“Not really.” 

That night, he and Quinton made something legendary. A masterpiece that had been talked about long after it had been torched. Richie felt as if it was something that will never die. 

Richie later learned that Quinton’s always doing shit like that. He also learned that Quinton is addicted to reactions. 

Towards the middle of Quinton’s Sophomore year, he snuck into Hoover high school at two A.M. and did something to some of the teacher’s chairs. All of them ate shit when they sat down the next morning. 

A couple months later, he snuck in again and hacked into the school’s security system and took down the web block. He proceeded to pull up porn on every computer on campus. He made sure to include porn for everyone. 

Then in the Eleventh grade, he kept a screwdriver in his backpack and spent the entire year unscrewing random shit until he had a small bucket full of screws. He left the bucket on his principles desk without any context. 

He’s the reason the school invested in security cameras.

Like Richie, Quinton’s a bit of a loner- he doesn’t have very many friends. He keeps a tight circle and he’s never told anyone, except for Richie, about his night time hobby. It’s probably one of the reasons he’s never been found out.

Quinton takes such pride in his craft that sometimes Richie wonders if he ever feels sad that he doesn’t receive any of the credit for it.

In the living room, Quinton jumps over the back of a pristine white sofa. He lands on his side and stays like that. Richie walks around the sofa and sits down near his feet. 

“A white sofa, how is that practical?” 

“They can afford to replace it every couple of months.” 

Richie nods in agreement.

“What do they do?” 

“Lawyer and Pediatrician.” 

“Damn.” 

“Yeah, my house looks like garbage next to this one.” 

A door slams down the hall and then there’s heavy rush of footsteps. A couple seconds later, a fat little boy is standing in front of them. 

“Did my mom say you could have friends over?” the kid asks in a smart sounding tone.

“It’s friend, as in singular, and yes.”

Richie wonders if that's a lie or not.

“I’m hungry,” the boy declares. 

“Anthony, you already cleaned out the pantry an hour ago. I don’t know what to tell you.” 

“I’m hungry!” he says louder, as if that would change the reality of the situation. Quinton sits up and sighs. He stretches out his legs and knits his fingers together behind his head. 

“I’ll order a pizza, how does that sound?” 

“I hate pizza!” 

“You didn’t hate it the last time I was over.” Quinton’s voice is calm, like he’s used being talked to like this. Richie already wants to kick Anthony in the knees.

“I want sushi.” 

“Sushi?” 

“Yes!” 

“Okay, I’ll order sushi. Now scram.” 

The kid looks unconvinced. He lingers for a little while longer before eventually leaving the room. 

“You can order sushi here?” Richie asks a little confused. 

“No, I don’t think so. I’m hoping he’ll forget about it. The kids a little autistic.” 

“I don’t think autism affects your memory,” Richie says.

Quinton shrugs and switches on the TV. 

“How much are they paying you?” 

“A hundred for four hours.” 

“Well, I’m expecting half of it because that was awful.” 

They watch an episode of Hoarders and make sly comments during the breaks of silence where someone’s crying. It makes them laugh. 

Richie would never admit it, but the show disturbs him. It makes him sad too.

Quinton nudges him with his foot. 

“There’s a box of cookies on the top shelf in the pantry, go get it.” 

Richie makes a face, "No, fuck you. You get it.” 

“Come on man, I’ll actually give you ten dollars.” 

“You’re the laziest person I’ve ever met in my life.” Richie says, but he still gets up. Ten dollars is ten dollars.

He goes into the kitchen where he has to open three different doors before he finally finds the pantry. He doesn’t understand why one house would need so many rooms. 

“Cheng! Which ones!” he shouts when he’s caught between two options: Oreos or Chips Ahoy. Quinton doesn’t respond so the momentous decision falls into his own hands. He grabs the oreos. 

When he makes it back to the living room, Anthony is standing in the same spot he had been when Richie first arrived. 

When Anthony starts to turn towards him, Quinton frantically gestures for him to hide the cookies. Richie quickly puts them behind his back. 

“What’s Cheng?” Anthony asks Richie. 

“It’s my last name.” Quinton answers for him. Anthony turns back around and looks at him funny. 

“But you’re not Asian.” 

“My grandpa was from China. you shit.”

“Where’s my sushi?” 

“They ran out, sorry kid.” Quinton replies, slumping back into the sofa and looking annoyed. 

“If you’re actually Asian, then you can make some.” 

“That ain’t how it works.” 

“Sushi!” he shouts. 

“Oh my God. Okay, how about this: if you leave us the fuck alone, I’ll give you a cookie.” 

“We don’t have any cookies.” Anthony says looking doubtful. He crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.

“You wanna bet?” Quinton says and then looks over at Richie.

Richie moves the box of Oreos out in front of him. Anthony gasps. 

“Just give the boy a cookie," Quinton waves a hand in Richie’s direction.

Richie peels back the plastic seal covering the box and picks out a couple Oreos. He extends an arm towards Anthony, holding them out to him. Anthony inches closer and slowly takes the cookies from Richie, keeping his eyes trained on the box.

He holds them for a few seconds, and then reaches over and snatches the whole box out of Richie’s hands before dashing back down the hallway and into his room.

“Fuck!” Quinton says throwing his hands up. “I’ve never seen that kid move so fast.”

Richie starts laughing. 

“Should we try to get them back?” he asks and Quinton shakes his head. 

“It’d be like sticking your hand in a lion’s den.” 

Richie goes to sit back down next to Quinton. 

After a couple minutes pass and they’re over mourning the loss of their Oreos, Quinton sighs and asks, “Did you bring any weed?” 

Richie smiles. 

“Thought you’d never ask.” 

“Sweet, I’ll pack a bowl and you grab the Chips Ahoy.” 

-

There was a time last year when Beverly had sex with Quinton, and Quinton isn’t the type of guy who just sleeps with people. He’s kind of socially awkward when it comes to girls. 

It put a rift in Richie and Beverly’s relationship for a little while. Quinton didn’t talk to Richie for a week.

To get back at Beverly, Richie decided to fuck Samantha, Beverly’s only friend at the time. He made sure the whole school knew about it, too. Samantha had a boyfriend. It ruined a lot of things. 

Everything had been a mess. But time seemed to make those harsh lines between them soften, and none of them are very good at being angry. 

Beverly’s done a lot of bad things. But, so has Richie.

At the end of the day, everyone is made up of the same kind of stuff. 

Samantha’s boyfriend was called Victor Criss and Richie had known him a long time ago. Victor never liked Richie all that much. There’d been this unspoken competition between them that Richie never wanted to participate in. 

Henry had liked Richie better and everyone knew it. And for some reason, there was this weird universal trend among them to be constantly searching for Henry’s approval. Richie didn’t understand why. He never cared that much.

When they started high school, Richie felt different about a lot of things. He didn’t agree with how he used to be, he didn’t agree with the dynamic his friendships functioned on. It was a hard time in Richie’s life. He can still remember the feeling of how disgusting his own skin felt on his body. He was so dirty. 

He dropped out of their world and no one had stopped him. 

Richie knew that it upset Henry, and when Richie had sex with Samantha, not once but twice, Henry took the opportunity to let Richie know he hadn’t forgotten about him.

Henry, Victor and Belch had been waiting for him in Mike’s parking lot during closing time. When Richie got into reaching distance, they had shoved a couple of fists in his face and said some pretty fucked up shit. Richie let it happen- not that there was much he could do to stop it. Three against one wasn’t a very fair fight and Richie learned a long time ago that no one keeps tabs on that sort of stuff. 

They left him to bleed all over the blacktop and then drove off in Victor’s old Honda Civic. Richie remembers it was a Honda Civic because he laid there and stared at the bumper as they sped away. After they were gone, he picked himself up and limped back over to Mike’s, where Rae had been counting the register. He looked up when heard the knock on the door. 

Richie accidentally smeared blood all over the glass. He tried to use his sleeve to wipe it off before Rae let him in, but all he did was make the smudge even bigger. 

When Rae pushed the door open, he stared at Richie with a varying amount of concern on his face. He stepped aside and let him in. 

“Sorry, I’ll windex that,” Richie had said, motioning to the blood on the door. 

Rae hadn’t even responded to that. He said, “What the hell happened? You’ve been gone for ten minutes.” 

“Got jumped in the parking lot.” Richie said shortly. He hobbled over to the bathroom and let himself in. He spent five minutes cleaning the blood off his face and examining the damage. He’ll have a shiner and a swollen lump on his cheek in the morning, but he’s been in worse shape. 

Rae’s holding a beer out for him when he returns. He takes it and sits down behind the counter. 

“You gonna explain?” Rae had asked. 

“I fucked some dude's girlfriend.” 

That had satisfied Rae to a T.

“Richie, my man, I’m proud to hear that.” 

“Thanks." Richie says. He felt the phantom of blood dripping from his nose and when he lifted a hand to slide it over his upper lip, there hadn't been anything there. 

“Sometimes, there’s a girl who’s worth the trouble. A girl you can’t just pass up. Was she one of those girls?” Rae asked, as if he’d channeled some wise old man from within. Richie laughed a little. 

“No, actually, she wasn’t. I only fucked her to get back at my friend for fucking my other friend. It’s a long story.” 

Rae’s quiet for a second. 

“Guess there’s a lot I don’t know about you, Rich.” 

“Yeah,” Richie agreed.


	10. Richie

Richie only realizes Luciano is in his English class after they slept together. 

There are a few instances where Richie turns his head and catches Luciano staring at him, but nothing ever comes from it. Richie isn’t going to say anything and he doesn’t think Luciano will either- not until he actually does. 

Their Government teacher hadn’t given them assigned seats but it’s a universal law that the desk you sit at on the very first day of school, is the desk you sit at for the rest of the year. Luciano breaks that rule three weeks after he and Richie shared a bed. 

He sits in Allie Jeni’s seat. Richie gazes over at him, surprised, and when Allie enters the room, she’s surprised too. Allie never says much so she quietly walks over to Luciano’s old desk and sits down. 

Before class starts, Luciano leans in a little closer to Richie and says ‘hi'. Richie’s eyes settle on him in a way that makes Luciano squirm. He says ‘hi’ back. 

Ten minutes before class is over, their teacher stops teaching and gives them a paper to work on. After three minutes Luciano says, 

“So uh- what are you doing this weekend?” 

Richie can tell that it took a lot for him to say that. 

“Nothing.” Richie responds glancing over at him again. Luciano looks a little flustered. 

“Do you want to maybe...hangout?” 

Richie isn’t really sure what Luciano’s intentions are and he doesn’t want him to get the wrong idea. He bends in really close to Luciano’s cheek and quietly says,

“I’ll fuck you but I’m not going to take you on a date.” 

And that makes Luciano very embarrassed. He pulls away from Richie and nods his head. 

“No, no- yeah okay.” His words overlap each other and his expression is crossed.

“Yeah, we can hangout," Richie says.

-

On Saturday, Richie goes to work and he spends most of day thinking about what would happen if Rae walked in on him having sex with Luciano. Rae would probably think that it's disgusting. 

Richie guesses he doesn’t really care how Rae would feel about it. Rae lives on his friend's sofa. Rae’s a fucking loser.

“Rosie’s birthday is on Tuesday.” Rae says as he’s emptying out the trash can from behind the register. He ties the bag up, sets it off to the side and lines it with a new one.

Rae had been married for thirteen years; his divorce was finalized three years ago. It wasn’t very mutual and nothing about the situation was orderly. It was a rough time for Rae. 

He only gets to see his daughter every other weekend now. “She’ll be thirteen.”

“Well, tell her I said happy birthday.” 

“If I buy her a card for you, will you sign it? She’s always had a crush on you.” 

Richie’s wiping down the cash rack when Rae says this. He stops to look over at him. 

“That’s okay. I’ll buy the card.” 

“You’re a good guy, Richie.” Rae says and slaps him over the shoulder. Richie isn’t really sure if buying a birthday card qualifies someone as a good guy.

“Is she having a birthday party?”

“I’d imagine. Not sure if I’m invited though.”

“Hm,” Richie hums in acknowledgement. “Are you getting her a gift?” 

“'Course I am. Who do you take me for?” 

“Sorry,” Richie says, not really sounding sorry. 

“Her mom doesn’t want her having a cell phone, so I bought her a cell phone.” 

“Logical.” 

“This way if the bitch tries to confiscate it, she won’t have the right too," Rae says, sounding proud of himself.

“And you’re going to pay the bill every month?” 

Rae stays quiet for a good long minute. 

“You know… I hadn’t thought about that.”

There’s a lot of things Rae doesn’t think about.

The bell rings and Richie looks over. 

Ben Hanscom and his friend Eddie walk into the the store. 

Richie’s never seen either of them in here before.

They go straight for the snack aisle. Richie watches them pick out foods that research has proven to cause digestive problems. This is a common trend that happens when people come into Mike’s.

Richie has never spoken one word to Ben in his entire life. He knows very little about him. He only knows that Ben used to be very fat and that Beverly hurt his feelings a couple years ago.

When they walk up to the register to pay, Ben’s the one to talk to him.

Richie scans everything and asks, “That it?” He usually says that because sometimes people forget about the pack of cigarettes they planned to buy. Richie doesn’t think either of them smoke cigarettes, but he asks them anyways. 

Ben replies with, “Yep.” 

Richie says, “Okay, it’s gonna be six forty-five.” 

Ben hands him a crumbled up ten dollar bill. Richie counts out the change and puts it down on the counter. Ben struggles to pick up one of the quarters while Richie asks, 

“You want a bag?” 

“Sure.” 

Richie drops the two packs of zebra cakes and a bag of gummy worms into a plastic bag and stretches his arm out over the counter. Eddie is the one to takes it from him, they maintain eye contact while he does so. 

Ben says, “Thanks."

Richie says, “No problem." 

And then they leave. 

-

Richie gets off around seven and texts Luciano around seven-thirty. 

Luciano sends him an address and it takes Richie seven minutes to drive there.

When Richie arrives, the driveway is empty, so that's where he parks. Luciano opens the front door before Richie even has the chance to pick up his phone to let him know he's arrived. It makes Richie smirk.

Richie hadn’t been expecting Luciano’s house to be so nice. It makes Richie wonder why he sells drugs. 

The first thought Richie has when he steps through the door is that the house smells like fresh laundry.

“No one’s home." Luciano says. He pats his hands on his thighs and leads Richie into the lounge area. 

The walls are tan and the sofas are brown. There’s a showy fireplace in the center of the room, and it makes Richie feel as if he’d just walked into a catalogue.

He hadn’t been expecting Luciano to pick a blunt up off the coffee table and light it up right there in the house. 

He puffs on it and then hands it to Richie. 

They get high together, a whole couch cushion apart, and talk about trivial things such as school and work. Richie’s never actually had a real conversation with Luciano before, it’s always been simple words in passing and nothing more than that. Richie doesn’t mind talking to Luciano, there’s something interesting about the way he says things. 

Once the blunt is smoked down to a cherry and there’s nothing left to talk about, Richie slides onto the empty cushion next to Luciano and puts his arm on the back of the sofa, behind Luciano’s head. Richie brushes his fingers against the skin on Luciano’s neck. Richie feels him tense up.

A couple seconds later, Richie presses into Luciano’s side and puts his face near Luciano’s throat. Richie exhales against his skin and when he reaches his other hand over and puts it just above Luciano’s thigh, he realizes that Luciano’s already hard. 

That turns Richie on. 

Richie kisses him. 

He pushes Luciano down so that he’s underneath him. Luciano's grip is weak as he holds onto Richie’s arms, his nails light on Richie’s skin while his chest arches up into a soft curve. Luciano kisses him back. About a second later, he pushes up on Richie’s chest. Richie pulls back. 

“Should we uh- go to my bedroom?” 

“I’ll fuck you right here, doesn’t matter to me.” Richie says. He doesn’t like the thought of pausing to uproot their location. The warm feeling he’s got from how Luciano is tucked beneath him is something he’d like to obtain.

“Oh...alright." Luciano says sounding unsure. Richie leans back down to kiss him. Seconds later Luciano’s pushing him up again. “Do you have...condoms?”

“Nah, thought we’d do it dry.” Richie says, smirking slightly. The look that crosses over Luciano's face almost makes him laugh. 

“I’m kidding.” He smiles. Richie feels kind of bad now that Luciano’s looking so uncomfortable. He puts his hand on Luciano’s cheek and swipes his thumb back and forth. The uncertainty in Luciano’s expression fades out slightly.

He goes back in to kiss him, and this time, Luciano is more responsive. 

Luciano is a soft guy. Richie can tell, and it’s different than how he presents himself to people in real life. He wonders how many people actually know this Luciano exists. 

Richie’s familiar with this kind of shit, a lot of boys Richie’s known act like that. Girls are a different story. They’re more transparent, have more feelings. Richie likes that about them. But he also likes to see that outer layer boys tend to have crumble underneath him. He likes how it makes him feel.

Luciano is textbook. He sells drugs and talks hard; but right now, he’s withering and struggling to keep his composure because of what Richie’s doing to him. 

Richie likes how it makes him feel.

When they’re finished, Richie pulls his pants back on and slumps against the back of the sofa. He really wants a cigarette. 

“Do you have any cigarettes?”

Luciano looks at him. 

“No, but I have more weed.” 

“That will do.” 

 

-

Richie hadn’t realized how soon after the football season ends that basketball season starts. They started conditioning mid-October. Richie missed every single practice. Tryouts are next week. 

He really did plan on trying out at first, but after seeing Henry and Victor and Belch and Patrick and all those boys who have played together for years, he decided against it. 

When his dad asked him how things were going, he lied. 

He doesn’t lie very often, especially to his father. There is a lot of factual evidence to prove that things don’t end well for boys who lie to their fathers. 

It isn’t like he planned to lie about it. He’d worked out what he was going to say, down to the very last word. But when his father had sat down in his recliner that night and everything about him was calm and easy, Richie hadn’t wanted to ruin that. 

“How’s practice been?” 

Richie becomes nervous almost instantly: lucky for him, he’s gotten well aquantiented with his ability to hide that kind of thing. 

“It’s good,” he says cooly, unaware of how badly he’s actually fucking himself over. 

-

Richie’s pattern has a lot of three dimensional aspects and two dimensional standouts. He hadn’t known what that meant until Mrs. Venture said it when she leaned over his shoulder and told him he was doing it very well. He glanced up at her and said, "Thank you."

She looks at Eddie’s and says, "That’s a good attempt, Eddie.” 

Richie thinks that’s one of the worst things a teacher can say to you.

Mrs. Venture walks away and Richie glimpses over at Eddie’s project.

Eddie catches him looking and sighs. He says, 

“Is it really that bad?” 

“Um.” 

Eddie sighs again. 

Richie’s been done with his project for a couple of days, so it’s sitting on the corner of his desk. He reaches for his phone.

“Can you help me?” Eddie asks as soon as Richie types his password in. 

Richie sets his phone down and looks at Eddie. 

“Okay," he says, leaning over to look at Eddie’s collage again. “What do you need help with?”

“It’s very ugly,” Eddie responds staring down at it. 

“Okay," Richie says again. 

“I don’t understand art,” Eddie scoots back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“Okay, well, a lot of those pieces are pink and green.”

 

“They are?” 

“Yes, are you blind?” Richie says, “You need to stick with one color tone.” 

“I don’t know what that means.” 

Richie takes a few of the magazines Eddie's left laying open across his half of the desk. He flips through them and rips out a couple pages colored in different shades of blue. He points to one of the lighter colors and looks at Eddie. 

“See this?” he asks, looking over to make sure Eddie’s following. Eddie nods. Richie points at one of the snippets of blue glued onto Eddie’s project. “Do you see how this and that are similar tones?” 

“Yes?” Eddie says uncertain, as if Richie’s trying to trick him. 

Richie moves his finger over to one of the smaller pieces next to it. “And do you see how this is more of a bluish green? You should scrape off all these pieces and replace them with the blue I just showed you.” 

Eddie groans, “That seems like a lot of work.” 

“Well, you asked.” 

Eddie’s starts to pout and Richie doesn’t realize that he is smiling. 

“Can I pay you to do it?” 

“I don’t prostitute my talents.” 

Eddie sighs. 

-

 

Richie’s in the parking lot at Mike’s when a large dog trots up to him and licks the back of his hand. 

He looks down at the dog and the dog looks back up at him. His tongue hangs out of his mouth and his tail wags back and forth. He licks Richie’s hand again. 

“Hi." Richie says. He’d been standing next to his truck with the door wide open. He slams it closed, locks it and bends down to pat the dog on the head. The dog has floppy ears and long white fur that's decorated in brown patches.

He walks up to Mike’s and the dog follows him. He feels a little bad leaving him outside by himself.

“There’s a dog out there." Richie says to Rae, who’s nodding off in his old fold up chair behind the counter. Richie’s voice startles him into reality. 

“What?” he asks groggily. 

“There’s a dog out there.” Richie repeats. Rae squints at him like he’s still confused. Richie points at the door where the dog is sitting on the other side with his tongue flopping out against the left side of his jaw. 

“Oh,” Rae says like he finally understands. “What does his collar say?” 

Richie looks over and sees that the dogs neck is very white and very bare. “He doesn’t have one."

“That’s a shame.” Rae says. They don’t talk about it for the rest of the night. 

Probably a good two hours later, Richie says, “I can start working Tuesdays and Thursdays, just not past seven.”

He has basketball practices are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he will have time to kill.

“It’s okay, have your days off, no need to work your youth away.” Rae says. Richie hadn’t really seen it like that. He doesn’t mind working. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, really.” 

The little bell rings and an older man walks in. He goes for the booze. 

Richie doesn’t care to watch him. He devotes his attention to the Anatomy homework laid out in front of him. 

“Rae, can you quiz me on this?” 

“Sure. Check this customer out first.” 

Richie glances up and watches the man stack two eight packs on top of one another. Richie starts to ring him out. 

“There’s a dog out there.” The man says. Richie sweeps his gaze past the man and towards the door where he can see the dog laying down, resting his snout on top of his front paws. 

“Yeah, he showed up a couple hours ago.” 

“You should call animal control. He could hurt someone.” The man says. He grabs one of the eight packs with his right hand and the other one with his left. He nods a thank you at Richie, and Richie nods back. 

The man leaves, and Richie does not call animal control. He hands Rae a diagram of the human skull and becomes frustrated when he mixes up the mandible and the maxilla for the third time. 

-

After Richie gets off work, the dog is still outside. He follows Richie to his truck. 

Richie pats him on the head again and then pops the door open. He leaves it unattended for a few seconds as he throws his book-bag in the back seat. When he finally goes to get in, the dog is already sitting in the driver's seat, his tail brushing against the steering wheel as he wags it. Richie stares at him. He stares back. 

He remembers what that man said about animal control. 

“Okay,” Richie says, “but you’re gonna have to move over.” 

The dog obliges when Richie nudges him into the passenger seat. He wags his tail and licks his nose.

Richie starts up the truck. 

-

“What the hell, Richie?” his dad says when Richie walks through the front door and there’s a dog following close behind him. 

“He followed me,” Richie explains. 

“I don’t want a dog.” 

“I’m not keeping him. I just got to find out who he belongs to.” 

His dad sighs and looks at the dog. The dogs goes over and licks his hand. 

“I want him gone by tomorrow.” 

“Okay.” 

-

The next day after school, Richie drives the dog over to Mike’s and sits outside on the curb with him. He isn’t really sure what he’s supposed to do. He isn’t sure if he’s supposed to make posters, or somehow look up everyone in town who owns a dog, or just go door to door parading him around like a balloon animal. 

Richie figures that if Mike's is the place he found him, he probably lives close by. Maybe his owner is a regular. Maybe it’s Steve. 

Steve walks past them a little while later and waves at Richie. He does not recognize the dog. 

Richie doesn’t mind being out here. The sky is grey and it’s a little chilly, but he feels more comfortable in this parking lot than in a lot of other places.

He goes into the store to buy a chocolate bar and a fruit punch. 

Rae laughs at him when he puts the chocolate bar and the fruit punch up on the counter. 

“Are you a child?” 

“My bad, I thought this was a beer.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

Rae rings him up, stares at the computer screen for a minute and says, “It’s on the house.” 

Richie shoves his wallet into his back pocket. “Thanks."

“You plan on sitting out there all night?” 

“What else am I supposed to do?” 

“Drop him off at a shelter.” Rae says. Richie shakes his head. 

“You know what they do to the dogs that no one wants.” 

“That’s the circle of life, kid.” 

“It’s fucked up.” 

Richie takes his chocolate bar and his fruit punch and walks outside to find Dog watching the door, as if he were waiting for Richie to return. Richie sits back down and starts to peel back the wrapper on his chocolate bar. Dog leans over and nips at the air beside it. He chases it when Richie moves it out of his reach. 

“This will kill you.” Richie says. The dog whines, but backs off after Richie doesn’t comply. Richie eats it quickly, so it isn’t there to taunt him. Sometimes Richie’s polite like that. 

A girl walks past him as he’s unscrewing the cap off of his fruit punch. 

“Cool dog,” she says. 

“Thanks,” Richie replies, “you can pet him if you want.” 

The girl comes over and strokes Dog behind the ear. 

“What’s his name?” 

“I don’t actually know, he isn’t mine,” he says and then adds, “I’ve just been calling him Dog.” 

“Oh,” she says, “nice to meet you, Dog.” 

She smiles at Richie and then walks into Mike’s. 

“I bet you score your owner a lot of pussy.” 

Dog wags his tail. 

-

They sit on that curb for hours and they still don’t find Dog’s owner. Richie plans to hide him outside until his dad goes to sleep but after dinner, his dad goes to grab something from his patrol car and finds Dog sitting in the driveway. 

He comes back in and says, “What the fuck, Richie. I said I don’t want a damn dog.” 

“I’m sorry, I’m still looking for his owner.” Richie says, his voice a little deflated. His dad’s looking at him in a way that makes his outsides turn inward. 

“If he’s not gone by the end of the week, we’re eating him for dinner.” 

Richie nods his head quickly. He believes him.

-

On Wednesday, he goes to work and Dog sits outside the door and waits for him just like he did that Monday. 

No one claims him. 

On Thursday, Quinton wants to see Alien Destruction Four and Richie would rather poke his eyes out than suffer through a fourth movie from any franchize, but Quinton says he’ll pay for his ticket and Richie really likes popcorn. 

When he pulls into Quinton’s driveway and Quinton opens the door, Dog is sitting in the passenger seat. Dog lulls his head to the side and sticks his tongue out. He stares at Quinton and Quinton stares back. Dog wags his tail. 

“Richie, what the fuck?” 

“He follows me around," Richie says. 

“Okay, well he can’t follow you into a movie.” 

“He’ll stay outside and wait.” 

Quinton huffs and slams the door shut. He climbs into the back seat. 

“I can’t believe you’re making me sit in the back.” 

“He’s better company than you are.” 

“Fuck you.” 

Richie starts to drive in the direction of town. 

“So are you keeping him?” 

“No, my dad doesn’t want a dog.” 

“That’s a shame, he’s pretty cute.” 

“I know, he’s really well behaved too.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I haven’t heard him bark once and he hasn't had any accidents.” 

“That’s a good dog.” 

“Yeah.” 

Richie’s sad that he can’t keep Dog. He really likes him. He feels like they have a mutual understanding of one another. It’s strange to feel that kind of connection with dog; he’s never really had that. It’s saddening to think about.

They pull up to the theater and Richie is not excited. He would rather sit outside on the curb next to Dog and smoke a cigarette. 

All three of them get out and before they go into the building, Richie bends over and pats Dog on the head, “Stay right here, we’ll be back soon.” 

They buy their tickets, buy their popcorn and buy their sodas, then walk down the theater’s patterned red carpet into Alien Destruction IV. 

There are a lot of things on this Earth that Richie thinks are bad and that movie was definitely one of them. Bad acting, bad plot, bad directing, bad dialogue, bad beginning, middle and end. Bad. 

Richie’s happy he didn’t pay for his ticket. 

When they walk outside, it’s already dark and Dog is waiting for them right where they left him. He’s surrounded by a family of five. There are a few children bent over, cooing at him, petting him anywhere they can reach. Their mother stands back and takes a picture. Dog wags his tail and licks one of the children’s hand. 

The mother looks up from her phone just in time to see Richie and Quinton approaching them. Richie doesn’t interrupt the kids. Dog looks very happy with the attention he’s receiving. 

“Is that your dog?” The mother asks him once they’ve stood watching them for a minute. 

“Yeah,” Richie says. 

“He’s so friendly, I was just thinking about to taking him home before you showed up,” the woman says. 

Dog is a very likable animal. 

“He is a good dog,” Richie says. 

“You should really put a collar on him. He’s just too cute, someone’s going to steal him.” 

“I probably should.” Richie replies. 

A few minutes later, they’re walking back to Richie’s truck. 

“Can I borrow your dog?” Quinton asks. 

It makes Richie a little sad the way Quinton says, ‘your dog.’

“Why?” 

“There’s this girl, Kimberly, in my Sociology class who would totally want my dick if she met this dog.” 

“That’s a very bold accusation for someone who can’t even say ‘hi’ to a girl.” 

“Hey fuck you, she’s going to be a dog trainer.” 

Richie says, “I will not pimp out the dog.”

Quinton is upset about it.

-

On Friday Richie goes to the library during lunch and starts making posters that say ‘dog found’ in the boldest font Microsoft has to offer. He crops a handsome picture of Dog into the extended header and underneath all that he puts is: AWARD: YOUR DOG.

All day he thinks about what Dog’s owner must look like. He pictures a burly looking man with large arm muscles who regularly takes Dog on hospital visits so that old dying people can tell him what a good boy he is. Richie isn’t so sure about the large arm muscles part, that’s just what he sees in his head, but he knows that the kind of person who raised Dog is probably very gentle.

Their Art project is due today, and Richie puts his chin over his knuckle and stares out the window. 

Eddie hadn’t said anything to him for the rest of the week. He hadn’t looked very happy either. Richie assumes it’s because he doesn’t like how his project is turning out. He hadn’t assumed it was because Eddie could not find his dog. 

Eddie’s on his phone and Richie’s looking at Eddie’s art project, thinking about all the things he could do to make it look better, when Mrs. Venture comes around to collect them. She doesn’t give them anything else to do the rest of the period. 

Richie plays around on his phone. 

The bell rings a little while later. 

Richie’s standing at his locker when Beverly comes up to him. Her t-shirt sits off one of her shoulders and Richie’s never seen her wear purple lipstick before, but she stands there using her reflection in the trophy case next to him to reapply it. 

Richie slips his arms through the straps on his book bag one strap at a time and then takes Dog’s stack of posters and straightens them until they’re all aligned. Beverly turns to him. 

“What’s that?” she says gazing down at the papers in his hands. He gives her one. 

“I’ve been taking care of this dog I found.” 

Beverly stares at the poster. 

“I know who’s dog this is.”

-

Richie’s been running through the parking lot for a couple minutes now.

His attention flits and flows as he thoroughly combs up and down the many rows of cars, searching for one person in particular.

Eventually, he spots the back of Eddie’s head. He’s is traveling in the opposite direction, away from Richie, to the other side of the lot. Richie sprints over. 

By the time he gets to him, Eddie is already sitting in the passenger seat of Ben Hancom’s car, putting his seatbelt on. 

“Eddie." Richie starts to say. He slaps one of the ‘found dog’ posters he’d made onto the windshield of the car. Taken off guard, Eddie jumps and looks up. 

“I have your dog," Richie says.

-

Ben and Eddie follow Richie back to his house where Dog sits in the driveway next to a bowl of off-brand dog food. Richie pulls into the driveway, Ben parks on the curb. All three of them get out and meet in the middle of Richie’s front yard. 

Dog starts going crazy. 

Richie has never heard Dog bark before and right now he’s howling. He runs up to Eddie and jumps at his leg, his paws stretching up Eddie’s side. He wags his tail so hard that his whole body goes with it. Eddie drops down and grabs Dog by the sides of his head, pulling their faces close to each other. Dog licks a stripe up his cheek and Eddie looks like he might cry. 

Richie is smiling.

The initial euphoria pertaining to their reunion centers out and Richie says, “That’s the best dog I’ve ever met.”

Eddie looks up at him, “Where did you find him?” 

“He came up to me in the parking lot at Mike’s and got in my car.” 

Eddie laughs a little. Richie’s heartbeat picks up. 

“Thanks for taking care of him.” Eddie says genuinely. He’s got a lot of warmness in his expression, a lot of relief too. Richie nods. 

“He’s a really good dog. I’m going to miss him.” 

Dog walks over to him and licks his hand. 

“What’s his name?” Richie asks.

“Scout.” 

“Scout," Richie repeats, "Good name.” He pats Scout on the head. 

They don’t hang around much longer after that. 

Eddie says, “Thanks again. I’ll see you in class.” 

Then they both leave and they take Scout with them. 

Richie’s sad about it.


	11. Richie

On Monday, Mrs. Venture says, “If you’re not already best friends with the person sitting next to you, make it happen. The two of you will be combining both of your projects in a collaboration piece.” 

“What the fuck.” Eddie says. He looks at Richie and Richie looks at him. 

-

“We should probably use the colors in your project and the shapes in mine," Richie suggests.

“Whatever you say,” Eddie responds. 

Richie has a feeling he’ll be coordinating the better part of the project, and surprisingly, he isn’t too bothered by it. Richie starts to sketch out a of couple thumbnails while Eddie folds a piece of paper in half a couple of times. 

When Richie properly looks over at Eddie, he sees that he is holding an origami swan. 

“This is all that I’m good for.” Eddie says after he notices Richie looking at his swan. They stare at each other until Eddie scoots in a little closer and cranes his neck to the side so he can see Richie’s paper better. “Wow, how’d you come up with all that?” 

 

“I don’t know.” 

Eddie points to the first one on the paper.

“I like that one.” 

“That’s the one we’ll use, then.” 

“Great.” 

-

Basketball games are on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Richie’s dad hasn’t had a weekend off in four years. This makes Richie feel more comfortable lying to him. 

Though he still sometimes struggles to win against that familiar feeling of guilt. Guilt takes from him, takes his energy, his piece of mind, even his limbs. Right now, he’s missing an arm, a leg and a couple of fingers. This is all figuratively. 

Richie’s father usually doesn’t bombard him with questions the way he used to. Richie supposes it has something to do with the trust they now share. 

His father is a good man. Richie will stand by that.

His father helps people everyday. He collects the worst in humanity and shows them what they need to do to be better. He makes others safe. He’s attentive and caring and he always does his best to make sure his small piece of the world is fair and just. Not everyone can do that. 

And all good people have bad things about them. Richie will stand by that, too. 

He hadn’t planned to go to the first game of the year but when Quinton said, ‘Perth’s gonna suck a dick raw. Just you watch, next week, Hoover be giving the other team salmonella,” Richie couldn’t just not watch his school suck a dick to point where it’s manifesting diseases. 

He picks Quinton up around five and for the second time today, he drives over to Perth. 

Richie doesn’t think he’s been in the gymnasium since his Freshman year gym class. He can’t say that he’d missed it. 

It smells similar to how his balls do after a good run. 

The student section is already shouting even though the game doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is just enough time for the antichrist to sprout from its place inside of anti-mary’s womb and disturb the evolution of the universe. Richie can formally say he is disappointed when that doesn’t happen. 

This is what actually happens: Henry Bowers cockily runs out onto the court while dribbling a basketball, his mustard colored jersey ripples as he shoots for the basket directly in front of the bleachers. He makes his shot. The sound of screaming escalates.

“Henry?” Quinton asks, leaning into Richie’s shoulder. They’re sitting on the very top row, in the right division, up against the wall. Richie finds no error in wanting to blend in. 

“Yep.” Richie replies watching the rest of the players file out of the locker room and onto the court. Belch Huggins swoops in and snatches Henry’s ball before it can bounce to the floor again. He also shoots for the middle basket, he doesn’t make it. 

“Belch?” 

“Yepp.” 

“I’m a Perth expert.” 

“You’re a stalker.” 

“No.” 

The obnoxious trill of a buzzer makes Richie flinch. Quinton laughs at him.

The game starts and by the time the first half is over, Perth is sucking Hoover’s dick. 

During intermission, Quinton gets up to get some popcorn and Richie debates going to the bathroom for a good five minutes before he decides he can’t hold it without being miserable. 

He takes his time manurving down the bleachers, watching for bodies and stray feet poking out into the aisle way. His shoes squeak when he steps down onto the floor. He has to bypasses the student section and then the concession stand before he is able to flee into the hallway.

There are four bathrooms located on Perth’s campus and because it deals with the most traffic, the one stationed directly across the gymnasium doors is probably the filfiest. When Richie walks in, there’s layer of piss dripping off of the first urinal he goes up too. He makes a face and side-steps until he’s stood in front of the one farthest from it.

After he’s done, he washes his hands and exits. The first thing he sees upon re-entering the hallway is Eddie and Ben messing around with a video camera. The camera isn’t a very nice one and the yellow tag dangling from the hinge of the viewfinder marks it as school property. 

“Ben, you literally didn’t record any of the warm up.” 

“What? Yes I did.” 

“No, you-”

“I hit the record button!” Ben shouts pointing at one of the buttons on the camera. 

“That one takes pictures.” Eddie says calmly. Ben stares at the camera. 

“Why the fuck is it red?” Ben’s voice is strained and his palms are facing upward while his arms shape the letter W. 

“I donno, you should write an letter and ask.” 

Richie has to tie his attention back into returning to the gym because looking at Eddie makes him think of Scout. It makes him kind of sad. 

When he glances up into the bleachers, Quinton’s already sitting there. He shoves a fist full of popcorn into his mouth and drops half of it into his lap. Richie watches him pick up the pieces and stuff them into his already puffed out cheeks.

Richie’s about to step onto the bleachers when someone runs into him. He stumbles forward but he doesn’t completely fall; however, he does hit the lower part of his knee on the edge of the step. It does not feel good. He pushes himself up straight and turns around. Henry is sneering at him.

“Sorry faggot, didn’t see you there.” 

“It’s no problem. I know you’re pretty preoccupied sucking Hoover’s dick so don’t worry about it.” 

Henry frowns and narrows his eyes. His hand clenches into a fist and he opens his mouth to say something. Before his brain even has the chance to grind its gears, his coach calls him over. 

Henry starts to walk away, his hardened glare still fixed on Richie while doing so. Richie just turns around and sprints up to the top row, where Quinton is waiting for him.

“What the fuck just happened? It looked like you were about to fight.” 

“That would be a waste of energy.” Richie says, popping his sneakers up onto the empty bench in front of them. “He just shoved me.” 

“Oh hell no. Richie, you gotta learn to stick up for yourself.” 

Quinton doesn’t know that Richie used to be the kind of guy who needed to stuck up to. Richie doesn’t like to talk about it. He shakes his head and waves a hand of dismissal in Quinton’s direction. 

A few minutes later, Richie asks, “Can I have some popcorn?” 

Quinton looks reluctant to answer. They both really like popcorn. 

“I asked if you wanted me to get you one.” 

“I just want a handful.” 

Quinton groans, picks out a couple pieces and drops them into Richie’s palm.

“Are you serious?” Richie asks, with half of a smile on his face. 

“Yes, this is mine,” Quinton says, clutching the bag to his chest. 

A minute later when Quinton puts his guard down, Richie makes his move. He dives his hand into the bag and takes the biggest fistful he can. 

“Richie!” Quinton squeals. Richie laughs as he draws back. 

“You were being selfish.” 

“You have to be selfish to survive in this economy.” 

Richie spots Eddie and Ben heading in their direction. Ben’s carrying a tripod and Eddie’s holding the same camera from before. 

“Y'all mind if we film here?” Ben asks. 

“Y'all” Eddie mocks, cocking his head from side to side. He’s already taken the tripod from Ben and has started to set it up before they’ve even answered. 

“Go right ahead,” Quinton responds.

Richie has a tough time focusing on the rest of the game. He doesn’t mean to, but he ends up watching Eddie for a lot of the time. Thankfully, Eddie’s too concentrated to notice; he carefully moves the camera back and forth and watches the majority of the game through the viewfinder. 

“I can take over if you need a break.” Ben suggests thoughtfully. Eddie shakes his head. 

“I know you’ll just end up recording the ceiling or some shit so it’s okay,” Eddie says. 

“Okay fuck you.” Ben responds. He crosses his arms over his chest and slumps back against the wall. He doesn’t actually look very bothered.

During the last quarter of the game, Henry Bowers is shouldered so hard that when he hits the floor, he slides a few feet. Ben jumps to his feet and claps his hands together. 

“Woooo, go Hoover!” he screams. 

“I’m keeping that in,” Eddie says. 

“Me shouting ‘go Hoover,’ or Henry eating shit?” 

“Both.” 

During the last quarter, Sandra Costco also approaches them. She doesn’t attend either of the school’s that are playing, but Richie isn’t surprised to see her here. She smiles at him. 

“I’m having a party at my place after the game if you guys want to come.” 

She says ‘you guys', loosely, staring at Richie through every word. Richie gives her a slight nod, not sure if he’s really up for a party. 

“Sounds cool. What’s your address?” Quinton says. Quinton doesn’t go to parties. Richie’s a little shocked by his reaction. 

“I’ll text it to you, Richie." she says, looking at him. Richie doesn’t remember ever giving Sandra his phone number but every time they’ve interacted, Richie’s been somewhere on the scale from tipsy to wasted so it’s not entirely unbelievable. 

She smiles at him one more time and then turns to Eddie and Ben. 

“You guys are invited too.” 

Ben doesn’t even try to hide the shock on his face. He looks like he’s about to say, “Really?” but he and everyone else knows that it would be very uncool of him. Instead, he casually says,   
“Sweet," and switches up the way features are laid out across his face. 

She walks away after that. 

“Eddie, can we go? Pretty please?” Ben asks as if he were asking for his mother’s approval. Eddie sighs, long and heavy. At the same time, Quinton turns to Richie and asks the same thing. 

“Richie, can we go? Pretty please?” 

Richie also sighs, long and heavy. He and Eddie exchange a look and then they both say okay. 

-

Eddie’s phone number is now saved in Richie’s phone under ‘Eddie K.’ He doesn’t know anyone else named Eddie but he puts the K there anyways. This only happens because he was asked to forward Sandra’s address to him. 

In Richie’s truck on the way over to Sandra’s, Richie says, 

“Don’t you hate parties?” 

“I only say that because I never get invited to them.” Quinton says. He has his elbow pressed against the side window and his cheek leaned into his knuckles. “Also, that girl was very attractive.” 

That makes Richie laugh. 

When they pull up to the house, Richie has trouble finding a place to park. There are a lot more cars lined down the street than he expected. When he finally does find an opening, it’s a few blocks away from the house and Richie bitches about it during the entire walk to the door. 

Sandra lives in a high class neighbourhood, in a high class home, with a lot of high class possessions that qualify her as a high class citizen. Her high class house is three stories high with an open layout that offers a lot more space than what the outside leads you to believe. Richie’s never been here before. 

When they walk in, Sandra is there to greet them and Quinton wipes his shoes on the doormat like he’s trying to impress her. When she leans in and hugs Richie, Richie pats her on the shoulder. 

After one of the briefest conversations Richie has ever participated in, Sandra becomes distracted by someone else and Richie doesn’t bother keeping up with her for the rest of the night. 

Quinton’s only been to one party in his whole life, and it is very obvious. He is clearly inexperienced in situations where there’s a lot of strangers grouped together by a beer keg and some music. He stands next to Richie in an awkward stillness that even starts to make Richie feel a little uncomfortable. 

Richie grabs him by the elbow and steers him into an opening in front of the newel. He leaves Quinton there to find them a couple drinks and possibly some entertainment. 

When he returns, he returns with a drink in his hand and a girl called Katie. 

“Quinton, this is Katie,” he says. 

“Hi Katie.” Quinton responds. He looks like he’s about to stick his arm out and shake her hand. Richie is relieved when he doesn’t do that. 

“Quinton’s never been to a party before.” Richie tells Katie. Katie nods, smiles and hands Quinton a drink. Quinton takes it. 

“Do you drink, Quinton?” Katie says into to his ear. Quinton shakes his head, turning slightly red. It’s interesting to see Quinton so flustered. Quinton is only ever this flustered when there is a girl involved. 

Katie and Quinton are in mid conversation by the time Richie sees Beverly in the corner of his eye; which, really isn’t good. 

He says, “I’ll be back in a second.” Then he goes towards her. 

Richie approaches Beverly and grabs her by the shoulder to turn her around so that they are facing each other.

“Richie?” she says, looking surprised. Richie usually doesn’t go to parties unless Beverly’s the one persuading him to. 

“You gotta leave, Bev,” he says. 

She makes a face, “What?” 

Richie jerks his head in Quinton’s direction. Beverly tries to follow but she ends up looking lost. 

“Quinton’s here. He doesn’t go to parties and you’re going to ruin this experience for him.” 

Beverly’s expression doesn’t give Richie a very good idea of what she’s thinking. 

“Why should I care?” she finally says. 

“Because I do.” Richie says firmly. He then gives her this look, a look that’s solid and hard, a look to convince her that he isn’t fucking around. 

Beverly stares at him. 

She agrees to leave a few minutes later. 

Richie looks over to where he’d left Quinton and Katie and finds that they are no longer there. That’s okay with him. He tools around by himself and makes shitty conversation with a couple different people he has no interest in knowing. 

By the time he finds Quinton again, Quinton’s down a few drinks and Katie’s nowhere to be seen. Instead, Ben and Quinton are standing very close to one another, laughing inexplicably loud. 

Eddie’s hanging around on the outside of their two person circle. Richie joins him. 

“Richie!” Quinton says reaching out and thumping him on the back. 

Ben glances over at him too and Richie thinks that he’s looking quite drunk. 

“You know, Richie used to be one of the biggest piles of shit in our grade.” Ben says. He sounds drunk too. 

“Richie was?”

“Oh yeah. Ain’t that right Eddie?” Ben shouts that last part. All three of them look at Eddie. 

Eddie just nods slightly and says, “Yeah.” 

Quinton doesn’t know anything about that.

“Why’d you stop being friends with all the other piles of shit?” Ben asks. 

“They were annoying.” Richie answers, but doesn’t want to talk about this. He’d rather talk about anything else in the entire universe than this. He turns to Eddie and says, “You wanna drink?” 

Eddie hesitates but he eventually nods and follows Richie over to Sandra’s high class wine rack where they have an array of toxic liquids to choose from. Richie attempts to make them both a drink although he has very little confidence in his drink making abilities. He’s not a mixologist. 

“Thanks.” Eddie says after Richie hands him a cup. Richie nods and they stand side by side, sipping their shitty Richie-infused drinks. 

“How’d you meet Quinton?” Eddie asks when the silence between them grows just as loud as the music. 

“Hoover vs Perth football game.” 

“So he goes to Hoover?” 

“Yep, he has the kind of school spirit I didn’t know existed in students outside of athletes.” 

“Huh.” 

“Yeah.” 

Eddie crosses one arm over his chest and rests his hand in the crook of his elbow. 

“Ben seems to get along with him.” Eddie says. He looks over to where Quinton and Ben are dancing together. 

“Quinton’s a cool guy.” 

A couple feet away, someone starts talking so loudly that the music starts to sound more like background noise. They both look over and find Bill Denbrough standing on top of a sofa, shouting in some Freshman's face. The Freshmen starts shrinking, almost like Bill stuffed him into a dryer for thirty minutes too long. 

Bill also looks angry.

Richie glances at Eddie. Eddie doesn’t look very happy. 

Richie says, “How’s Dog- I mean Scout?” 

It takes Eddie a minute to refocus but he says, “I think he might actually miss you,” then he shrugs, “at least, I think that’s what the moping means.” 

“Moping?” 

“Yeah- whining, scratching the doors, loitering around outside. I don’t know, he’s usually not so annoying.” 

Richie smiles a little. 

“I miss him, too.” 

Suddenly, Ben and Quinton rush over to them. 

Ben holds his arm out and reveals two little pieces of paper with miniature dinosaurs on them laying in the palm of his hand. 

“We just took acid.” Quinton says. Richie’s eyes bug a little. 

“What the fuck?” Richie says. “Who did you get acid from?” 

Quinton motions towards the pillars in the kitchen archway. Luciano’s standing over there. 

“Here,” Ben urges, moving his hand up and down.

“I’m good,” Eddie says. 

“Come on Eddie, you’re no fun,” Ben insists. 

“Someone’s going to have to babysit your stupid ass,” Eddie replies. 

Ben scowls, then turns solely to Richie and offers him a tab directly. 

Richie thinks good and hard about it for about three seconds before he takes the tab and pops it into his mouth. He maneuvers it around until it’s sitting under his tongue. Eddie is staring at him the whole time he does this. 

It takes an hour for Richie to actually feel anything, and when he does, he just feels really high. 

About an hour after that, he’s fallen into the matrix. 

Lots of things that happen in the world start to make a little more sense to him. 

He’s outside now, all stretched out in the grass. Ben and Quinton are laying down next to him while Eddie’s sitting a couple feet away from them. 

There’s a blanket wrapped around him and he thinks it might be melting into his skin. When he looks at the moon, it is very clear that there is a man sitting on top of it.

“Man on the moon,” he says. 

“Why are the stars chasing each other?” Quinton asks.

“Wow," Ben says. 

A few minutes later, Richie flips onto his stomach and uses his elbows to army crawl over to Eddie. He lowers himself completely when he’s a couple inches away and looks up. Eddie meets his gaze. 

“Can I come see your dog?” 

“Sure.” 

Richie’s smile takes up his whole face. It makes Eddie’s expression a little softer. 

“Thanks, I’m really lonely without him.” 

“I was lonely without him, too.” 

A beat of silence passes and Richie says, 

“Being on this drug is life altering. I think that I can understand anything.” 

“You wanna do my math homework?” 

“That does not sound fun at all.” Richie says. For a second, a pair of headlights distract him as a car drives by on the street. At first, he thinks it might be an alien invasion.

When Richie turns his attention back to Eddie, he's already watching him. 

Richie doesn’t know why, but he reaches out and puts his hand on Eddie’s knee. Eddie goes still. He slowly looks down at Richie’s hand, his expression dimming and his body tensing up. 

Eventually, he shifts into a position where it would be an inconvenience for Richie to keep his hand resting where it is. Richie lets his arm fall into the grass, and he and Eddie stare at each other. Richie thinks it might be the drugs but Eddie’s face is very distorted. 

“I’m sorry," Richie says. 

“Uh...it’s okay," Eddie says awkwardly. 

Richie is very glad that he is laying on his stomach because he has an erection. 

Being on acid makes you think about a lot of things.

“Okay, now give me your number.” Quinton says. Richie glances over where Quinton and Ben are sitting across from each other like two twelve year old girls at a sleepover.

“I’ll just text you right now.” 

“Okay.” 

Richie says, “I think we’re being replaced.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, his voice sounds far away. 

Richie really wants to have sex with Eddie right now. 

Being on acid really opens up those unwanted neurological pathways. 

When it gets to the point where it’s so late that they can hear birds chirping, Quinton and Ben go on a mission to find more blankets. They steal a few from a number of sleeping bodies on the floor, and the four of them make a pallet in the bed of Richie’s truck. 

Richie doesn’t sleep at all. He’s too fucked up to sleep. 

He lays next to Eddie for the rest of the night, and all he can think about is having sex with him. 

-

When Richie is ready to leave the next morning, he’s still rolling. Driving Quinton clear across town into Hoover proved to be an extremely nerve wracking experience. Making it into his own neighbourhood had been an even bigger challenge. 

His thoughts are quite unmanageable and he is not used to thinking like a guy who is on acid. He unconsciously marks left turns as the devil's path to destruction. He does not understand why left turns are giving him such awful anxiety. He avoids them. 

His dad isn’t home when he gets there. It’s Saturday, and he works. Richie is very grateful for that. He needs to sleep this shit off. 

He curls up in his bed and passes out. 

When he wakes up, it’s to the sound of his dad knocking on his door.

“Hi?” his voice is groggy. He tries to sit up, but the world is spinning. He uses the back of his hand to wipe his face. 

“Do you not have work today?” His father asks, entering the room.

“Oh... what time is it?” 

“Five.” 

“Five?” That makes Richie start moving, stumbling out of bed. “I gotta go,” he says, picking up a cumbled pair of jeans from the night before and shimming into them.

“You smell,” his dad says. 

“There’s no time to shower.” he responds. He slips his shirt off and finds his red one sitting on top of the mountain inside his hamper. He’s only gotten a few wears out of it since he’d last washed it, it should be fine.

His dad watches him carefully. Richie tries to ignore him, but when he starts heading for the door his dad catches him by the shoulder and turns him around. 

He looks directly into his face and Richie’s afraid that his pupils are still blown. 

“Are you high?” 

They are. 

“No," Richie puts a lot of effort into solidifying his answer; and still, it has no impact on his father’s expression. “I got to go," Richie repeats.

The grip his father has on his shoulder loosens enough to where Richie is able to pull away from him. He leaves.

-

When he walks into Mike’s, Rae looks at him and says, “Holy shit. Are you high?” 

He must look high.

“Uh, kind of." Richie admits. He would usually hop over the counter but he doesn’t think he possesses the capability to do that right now. He uses the gate. “Sorry I’m late.”

“S’okay.” Rae says. Rae had been flipping through some random sports magazine. Richie knows that Rae couldn’t give less of a shit about sports, and that he’d just been looking at the models in the ad campaigns. 

When the magazine starts to slip off of his lap, he doesn’t do anything thing to stop it from falling to the floor. “What’d you do?” 

“I took some acid last night," Richie responds. 

“Ah..good old LSD. Be careful with that shit, it can really fuck you up.”

“I know.” Richie says, not actually knowing the true dangers of acid. He just knows that the last thing he wants to hear about is the damage he’s possibly inflicted upon himself. 

He looks out onto the floor and sees an older women watching them. The way the lines in her aging skin turn downward make Richie think that she had been listening to their conversation.

When she comes up to the counter, she puts down two gallons of milk and a bottle of tylenol before she reaches for her purse. Richie greets her and she ignores him. The situation isn’t too uncomfortable, but Richie doesn’t like shitty old bitches. 

She pays and eyes him like he’s some sort of strange species rising from the ashes of extinction. Richie thinks it’s a bit of an overreaction. He is only a teenage boy and teenage boys often like to experiment with drugs, such as acid. 

“I bet that woman’s never rode a dick for fun before.” Rae says once she’s stepped onto the sidewalk and the door closes behind her. “She looks like one of those old bitches who gives it up once a year on her husband's birthday.” 

“Why you gotta say shit like that?” Richie says grimincing. He would rather not think about the old woman riding a dick once a year on her husbands birthday, but now, that’s exactly what he’s thinking about. 

Rae laughs. He’s always saying disgusting shit. 

The bell chimes and Richie glances over. 

The guy who walks in- slaunters in- reminds Richie of someone he’s met before. His hair is spiked in the front and his jeans have wet hand prints on them, like he’d washed his hands and patted them dry on his pockets.

He doesn’t even glance over at the counter, and it takes Richie approximately two minutes of observation to realize this kid is dropping candy into his oversized pockets. His pants are the kind of pants that drug dealers wear. Probably because the pockets can fit a lot of drugs in them. 

Richie turns to Rae. Rae is not paying attention. Rae is too preoccupied imagining the horrible, disgusting things he’d like to do to Carrie, who is on page three in the magazine on the floor next to his feet. 

Richie says, “Rae,” Rae looks up at him. “That boy is stealing.” Richie says that part very loudly. Rae looks out onto the floor to find the boy has frozen mid stride. He’s looking at them. 

“Boy, you stealing?” Rae shouts. A genius approach that Rae often uses upon encountering shoplifters.

The boy looks a little frightened now. 

It is not a smart idea to shoplift during the day in an empty convenience store when there are two clerks staring at you. Richie wonders if this kid is also on acid.

“No,” he says but everything about his demeanor states otherwise. 

“You lying to me?” Rae stands up now. Rae can be intimidating when he wants to be. 

“No,” the boy says again, a little stronger this time. 

“Richie, call the police. I ain’t fucking down with this shit today.” Rae says. By the time Richie picks the phone up, everything the boy had put into his pockets is emptied out onto the floor and he’s bolted for the door. He’s around the store corner in a matter of seconds. Richie puts the phone down. 

Rae brushes his hands together and says, “Nothing a little coercion can’t handle.” 

Richie has never heard Rae say a word like coercion. 

There are several different types of shoplifters that Richie has come across during his time working at Mike's. There are shoplifters who will wet their pants once directly spoken to. Shoplifters who will wave at your security camera just to be a dick. Then, there are the shoplifters who have guns tucked between their hip and their waistband. Richie usually ignores those guys; a bag of chips is not worthing being shot.

Richie walks out onto the floor and starts to pick up the mess the boy had made. Then it hits Richie, who that boy was. 

His name is Abril. 

-

When Richie gets home that night, it’s an hour later than normal and he hopes that his father is in bed already. 

His father is sitting in his recliner, watching T.V. 

“Hi.” Richie says. He tosses his keys onto the counter and shrugs his jacket off. His father stands up. 

“Hello,” he replies. His dad walks up to where Richie is standing in the kitchen’s entryway and sighs. “I’ve been thinking,” he says. His face looks a little grey and Richie doesn’t like the octave his voice is at. “I think you were high today.” 

Richie says, “I wasn’t." But that is a lie. 

His father has no way of knowing that it is a lie other than his cop like intuition that tells him so. He’s a very intuitive guy. 

“You’re lying to me.” His father says. Richie does not know what would be worse, owning up to his lie or feeding into its continuation. He doesn’t think that it matters either way. They are probably equally as bad.

Richie shrinks.

His father is a very swift man. A couple months ago, his dad’s station had hosted an office party that ended with a brief award ceremony. His father had been given the title: “Quickest Officer to Take Action.”

When he strikes Richie, the movement is swift.

After Richie is able to recover, he looks at his father and says, “I’m sorry.” 

“The next time you wanna fuck with your body like that, just let me know, I’ll beat you into retardation," his tone is mean and he overdresses his scowl to the point that it wears thin. 

A few minutes later, he goes to his bedroom. He needs to sleep it off.

Richie soon realizes that his tongue is bleeding, and for some reason, the thought of his own blood and saliva mixing together kind of disgusts him. He goes to the bathroom and spits in the sink. 

Richie then rubs the back of his head and glances at himself in the mirror. He has to look away after so many seconds. 

He goes to bed. 

He needs to sleeps it off.


	12. Richie

Richie’s is half asleep in English class when Mr. Trout announces that the class will be working on collaborative essays. Collaborative essays are the worst kind of essays. 

Mr. Trout explains that they are allowed to pick their partners, but because Richie does not have any friends, this is unfortunate news. He doesn’t even move from his seat when Mr. Trout gives them the go to pair up.

When Luciano and Eddie both start to heading towards him, he’s a little confused. 

Eddie doesn’t seem to notice that Luciano’s end goal is the same as his own: the seat next to Richie’s. In fact, he doesn’t seem to notice Luciano at all. 

Eddie plops down in the chair and then sluggishly looks over at Richie to say, 

“It’s either you or Victor Criss.” 

“I don’t need an explanation," Richie says. 

Richie gazes up to see Luciano staring at them. 

Luciano is standing in between a pair of desks, a couple feet away. He had gone still after Eddie sat down next to Richie. Richie watches Luciano shift around awkwardly for a second or two before he turns his attention back to Eddie. 

“So animal neglect or poverty?” Eddie asks.

“Animal neglect.” Richie responds. He doesn’t really care which one they do, the process will be the same either way- jarring and painful. He’d only said animal neglect because usually when he doesn’t have a preference, he goes with the first option. 

Eddie cracks his knuckles, “Okay, well, I hope you’re prepared to have your faith in humanity destroyed.”

“That happened a long time ago, Edward.”

The rest of the class period is given to them to do research and get a headstart on their outline. Eddie and Richie do not use this time very wisely. All they do is fuck around. 

Near the end of class, Mr. Trout goes around the room to check in with each group and look at their progress. 

When he makes it over to Eddie and Richie, they look at each other. Eddie has to hide his face behind his hand to keep his smile from showing through. 

“How’s it going boys?” Mr. Trout asks. Mr. Trout is a man who wears clothes that are much too small for his body. His collared shirt is tight against his abdomen and the fabric barely pulls over his stomach and tucks into his the waistline of his pants. When he talks, he gets too close to your face and makes more eye contact than any human Richie’s ever met. 

“It’s going great," Richie says. 

“Awesome! You’re both smart guys, I know you’ll whip up something fantastic.” 

Mr. Trout also uses the word fantastic in place of most positive words in the English language. Richie finds this ironic considering he is an English teacher.

“For sure.” Richie says. Mr. Trout is too oblivious to realize that Richie has said it like an asshole. Eddie is not oblivious; he smiles a little wider. 

-

Richie hasn’t made much progress on their art project. He ends up letting Eddie take it home over the weekend because he’d been complaining about feeling useless. Richie has to remind him that in this situation, he is useless. 

Richie had shown him exactly what to sketch out and how much pressure he should apply to the pencil. Eddie had done what he’d been instructed to do correctly, but he’d done it with so little craftsmanship that Richie has to go back and erase most of it. Eddie isn’t all that offended. 

“You’re a very talented artist, Richie.” Mrs. Venture says. She had been secretly standing behind Richie and Eddie’s desk. She had watched Richie trace back through their project and fix it. “Very good eye,” she adds. 

Richie sees Eddie nodding in his peripheral vision.

“Thank you," Richie says. 

“I love seeing talent in my classroom. It’s not as common as you may think. Is there a reason you didn’t take this class sooner? I would have liked to see you in my advanced classes.” 

“I like to conserve my energy.” 

Mrs. Venture does not know what to say to that. She stands there and lets a wave of silence smash over them. Then she places a hand on Richie’s shoulder. 

“Conserve your energy when doing math, nobody likes math. You’re good at art, everybody likes art.” She says as if she’s some wise old lady. She walks away after that.

“If she took a look at my grades she would know that I put forth no energy in math class,” Richie mumbles and stares down at the project. 

“Who’s your math teacher?” Eddie asks.

“Mr. Ross.” 

“Lucky you.” 

“Yeah, I hear Sagetti’s awful.” 

“He’s either blubbering about the child prodigy he adopted or cracking jokes about women being useless.” 

“I mean, at least that sounds kind of entertaining.” 

Eddie looks up at him through his lashes. 

“It really isn’t. He drives me fucking insane.” 

“I’m sorry you have to go through that.”

A few minutes go by and then Eddie says, 

“Um- do you wanna meet up in the library today? We should probably start our essay.” 

“I actually have to work after school. Is tomorrow okay?” 

Eddie gives him a small smile, “That’s fine.” 

-

Work sucks. 

-

Richie hasn’t spoken to his father very much all week. Recently, his Dad’s been coming home late and getting up early. People’s morals seem to derail around the holidays. 

Richie’s laying face up on top of his comforter when he hears the garage door open. He glances over at the alarm clock on his night side table and quickly decides that he’s too tired to get up to greet his dad. He rolls onto his side and stares at the wall instead. 

Thirty minutes later, there’s a short knock on his door. Richie is still staring at the wall so he doesn’t watch his father step into the room, only listens to him. 

“Hi,” his dad says.

Richie sits up and turns to look at him; he’s still in his uniform. Their eyes lock and there’s something exhausted about the way he holds onto Richie’s gaze. He looks less like a person when he’s in his uniform, and sometimes Richie forgets that he’s more than just his dad.

His dad comes over and sits on the edge of his bed. 

“It’s your grandmother’s birthday today. Did you call her?” 

Richie nods. He called his grandma Beatrice during his lunch period at school so he wouldn’t forget. Beatrice gets very lonely on days like today. She’s eighty-one years old and genuinely enjoys hearing nice simple words from her grandson. He knows he should call more often. It makes him feel bad. 

“Good...good,” his dad looks down at his hands, he clenches them and unclenches them. He says, “Some boy from your school got assaulted by some Hoover kids today. Pretty messy scene. They threw rocks at him and then pissed on him.” 

Richie does not understand the infatuation his generation has when it comes to pissing on people. 

“That sucks,” Richie says.

“Yeah.” 

Richie gets the feeling his dad is just trying to make conversation. 

“So uh… how’s school?” his father asks him and it is something a father who does not know what to say to his son would ask. 

“It’s fine," Richie responds; something an uninterested teenage boy who also does not know what to say to his father would say.

It’s situations like these where Richie truly wishes he did like things like basketball or criminal justice. Talking about basketball would be much easier than talking about nothing. 

-

The next day after school, he and Eddie are sitting in the library. 

There are a few students scattered around the room. One girl sits a table over from them and there are a few more kids who are up and scouring the shelves. Everyone has the same expression on their face, almost like it says, ‘you must look miserable before you enter the library,’ in the school hand book. 

He and Eddie have spent the first hour of their arrival talking about stupid shit. And though the shit they talk about is stupid, talking to Eddie still makes Richie’s heart beat harder and he does not want to ruin it by talking about dying animals. Eddie has to pull the trigger on that one. 

“Okay we need to stop.” Eddie finally says. Richie doesn’t want to stop. 

“Probably,” he replies. 

Eddie brought his laptop from home. It’s small with a few dings weathered into the lid and when he goes to boot it up, it takes about half a century. 

Richie does not own a laptop. He had one that looked similar to Eddie’s in middle school, but it had been smashed in the eighth grade when he and Henry Bower’s were playing a round of ‘smash each other’s shit.’ A game Henry liked to play when someone pissed him off. He found Richie’s laptop in his backpack and stomped on it with his brand new combat boots which had made him look like a goth. 

Richie has always thought there was something psychotic about Henry. 

Eddie types something into his laptop at a rapid speed. He’s one of those people who can type without looking at the keyboard. It’s a skill that’s always impressed Richie.

“Alright.” Eddie mumbles more to himself than to Richie. He hits a few more keys at a ridiculous speed and then squints at the screen like he’s having trouble reading whatever’s there. He scrolls, types and then turns the laptop so Richie can see it too. 

There’s an image of a little boy whose mouth is open mid-sentence, in front of him is a large play button. This is also known as a video. 

“That video is an hour long,” Richie says. 

“Yeah, and if we abbreviate everything that’s happening while we watch it then the process goes a lot faster. This is how I write most of my essays.” 

Richies thinks about that for a minute. 

“That’s actually kind of smart” 

“I know. Mr. Trout would never know we ripped it off because who the fuck is going to watch an hour long video on starving dogs," Eddie looks directly into Richie’s eyes when he says that. 

Richie does not know why he thinks about having sex with Eddie in that exact moment, only that he does. He wishes he would not think about stuff like that at times like this. They are in the school library. 

Eddie looks back towards the screen. 

He plays the video and lowers the sound to a respectable volume so it isn’t disturbing anyone else. Eddie is considerate like that. 

They’re fifteen minutes into the video and Eddie has already paused it numerous times to switch tabs. He types out multiple mini summaries and explains to Richie that eventually he will later combine them into one big summary. Richie watches him and only adds commentary when he thinks he has something worth mentioning. He realizes that Eddie’s trick to writing essays is ingenious.

Eddie hits the spacebar to play the video again and Richie leans back in his chair. 

The video is called ‘poor dogs’, and it’s about all the worst situations a dog can be in. It focuses mainly on dog fights, puppy mills and animal abuse. 

“This is the most depressing shit I’ve ever seen,” Richie says after watching a grainy clip of a large dog being kicked in the throat. “Who the fuck are these people?" 

“Monsters.” Eddie replies. He scoots closer to the table, pauses the video and changes tabs. 

“This makes me want to go volunteer at a humane society or some shit," Richie says. 

Eddie doesn’t respond until he’s done typing out whatever he’s thinking about; he then looks over at Richie and says, 

“If you go, I’ll go.” 

“Wait- really?” 

“Yeah, why not. It would be good content for the essay; plus, I’m always looking for ways to boost my conscious.” 

Richie starts to think about having sex with Eddie again. 

“Okay then. Let’s do it,” he says. 

-

 

They decide to volunteer on Tuesday after school and Richie is disappointed in himself for being more amped to be going with Eddie than to be going at all. He finds that he can not deter what his brain thinks about when it comes to Eddie. He has come to accept that. 

It’s Sunday today and Beverly is laying next to him in bed. Sharron and his father are downstairs cooking dinner together. Sharron is a marvelous cook. Richie appreciates her company. 

Beverly’s texting someone when she groans and throws her phone across the bed. She rolls over so that her chin is resting on Richie’s chest. 

“Have you ever thought about having sex with me?” 

It does not surprise Richie that Beverly would ask him something like that.

“Probably. I’d never do it though." He answers honestly. There’s something on her face that Richie wishes wasn’t there. He thinks she might be serious.

“Oh come on, a little step brother- step sister action is totally hot nowadays.” 

“Maybe to you, but I’d like to keep my dick itch free. God only knows where you’ve been.” 

Beverly rolls away from him.

“Fuck you.” She says. It was only meant to be a joke but Richie senses that he may have hurt her feelings. 

Richie huffs and looks at his phone. He puts up the illusion that he doesn’t feel bad about it- which maybe he does- but he would still never apologize. 

A little while later, Beverly asks, “Can you drive me to Colton's on Tuesday after school?” 

Colton is Beverly’s cousin. Not another guy she has sex with. 

“I actually have plans Tuesday.” 

“Well can you put them off for an hour?” 

“Um…” Richie does not know if he should do that. If he were to take Beverley to Colton’s on Tuesday, that means that she and Eddie would have to be in the same car, together. Eddie doesn’t like Beverly and Richie is selfish. He doesn’t want to put his time with Eddie in jeopardy. “I’m kind of volunteering at an animal shelter with Eddie so…” 

Beverly looks at him funny. 

“Eddie? Since when are you and Eddie friends?” 

“We’re doing an essay on dogs.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

Beverly looks around his room like she’s hoping to find what to say hidden in-between Richie’s belongings.

“So you’re not going to take me?”

Richie sighs. 

“It’s probably not a great idea.” 

Beverly scoffs, “I- hasn’t he hated me for long enough?” 

“I mean you did shove your tits into his friendships.” 

“That was a terrible sentence.”

“Sounded better in my head.” 

“That shit happened a long time ago.” 

“Its effects seemed to last” 

“Why are you so against me?” Beverly drops both of her hands into her lap and looks at him narrowly. 

“I’m not against you Beverly, you just tend to fuck up a lot of shit and not understand why no one likes you.” 

That was not the right thing to say. 

Beverly sinks back onto his mattress and positions herself to where she’s able to kick Richie in the ribs with ease. Then she kicks him in the ribs. 

Richie hunches into himself and folds his arms over the aching area near the center of his chest. After Beverly’s satisfied watching Richie squirm around in pain, she scrambles off the bed and goes over to the door. She yanks it open, steps out and slams it shut. 

Richie will not apologize. 

-

Tuesday comes and Richie spends the majority of the day thinking about Eddie. 

In English they don’t get much more of their essay done, which is fine, they have time. 

In art they don’t do much either. 

When the last bell rings, Eddie meets Richie at his truck. 

Eddie had been in charge of finding the nearest shelter so when Richie starts the car, Eddie puts the address in his phone and they head in that direction. 

The ride there takes around twenty-minutes and Richie had forgotten to change the CD before Eddie got in the car. He always does before he drives anyone around. Sometimes he’s self-conscious about his music taste. 

Eddie says, “This is weird.” He’s talking about the song that is playing. 

“I can turn it off.” Richie says. He reaches for the eject button, but Eddie swats his hand down. 

“No, I like it," Eddie says. 

Richie thinks about having sex with him. 

“Really?” he says after shooting down the urge to say ‘thanks,’ because that would be a dumb. 

“Yeah, it’s different. I don’t listen to a lot of music.” 

“I love music," Richie says. 

“It’s good when it’s good.”

When they pull up to the shelter, the first thing that Richie notices is the depressing banner hanging between the two front windows. The image on the banner depicts two dogs who have their tails tucked between their legs and their ears flattened. They look very sad and very scared. It makes Richie feel very sad and very guilty. Which probably means it’s good advertising. 

They get out of the truck and Richie thinks about how much colder the air is than it was yesterday. The cold makes him think about how there’s not much time left before Christmas break, and then that makes him think about how he probably should have applied to college already. He wishes he would not think about these things.

Eddie gets to the door before he does and holds it open for him. Richie says, “Thanks." He feels a little awkward for some reason. 

In the lobby, there is a Christmas tree tucked into the corner of the room that is the exact same height as Richie. Instead of ornaments, the tree is decorated with pictures of all the different pets that are up for adoption. 

Richie thinks that’s a nice idea until he looks closer at the pictures; then he’s wondering who the fuck is naming these animals. 

Towards the top of the tree there’s a guinea pig named Jennifer and next to her is a cat named Steven; below Steven is a dog called Timmy. Jennifer, Steve and Timmy are names that you should never call your pet. 

As Richie makes this critical observation about the tree, Eddie talks to the lady sitting behind the glass window. When Richie properly looks over at her, he notices that her hair kind of looks like a cloud. 

They talk for a few minutes and Richie starts to feel like a child whose mother is signing them into a doctor's appointment. The lady hands Eddie a clipboard with no pen, Eddie has to ask for one. Then he goes over to the assembly line of chairs against the back wall and sits down. Richie follows him. 

Richie takes a seat next to Eddie and watches him fill in both of their names and information on the volunteer forms. 

Richie starts to get antsy after doing nothing for so long. He stares at the Christmas tree from across the room and bounces his leg up and down. Then he looks down at the clipboard in Eddie’s lap and in that very instant he becomes hyper aware of how close they are sitting. Richie's shoulder is pushed into Eddie’s and their legs are about two centimeters from touching. It’s making him feel very cautious. And kind of horny. 

Eddie asks Richie for his signature, then taps the pen against the paper before he stands up and returns both forms to the secretary. She gets to her feet and hits a button, which makes a loud buzzing noise, then she walks over and pulls open the metal door that is approximately a foot away from her glass window. She waves them in. 

On the other side of the door is a generic looking office. There are a bunch of file cabinets and a few ten year old computers. Richie sees a stapler sitting on just about every desk corner. 

The cloud haired woman leads them directly into a hallway with cement floors and cement walls. Richie feels like he’s walking into a prison. The feeling doesn’t change once they enter the kennel, which also has cement floors and cement walls. 

Richie looks around. There are several rows of wire net dog pens going up and down the room. The woman directs them down the middle aisle and with every step Richie takes, the more depressed he feels. 

There are some dogs that jump up the front of their cages, poking their nails through the spaces of the fence and howling as Richie passes. Others only wag their tails and a few do nothing at all. 

The woman guides them into a smaller room stationed just off the kennel where they find a cross legged boy sat on the floor with a cat in his lap. When they enter, he gives them a loose grin while the cat springs from his lap and darts under a table across the room.

The boy stands up and the woman says, “Jacob is a regular volunteer, he’ll be showing you boys around.” She goes over and pats Jacob on the back of the shoulder in a silent thank you kind of way and then she leaves. 

Eddie comes right out and says, “I’m Eddie.”

Jacobs nods at him and Richie thinks about how if they were adults, Eddie would have reached out to shake Jacobs hand. Shaking someone’s hand without including a fist bump is an uncool thing to do nowadays. 

“Jacob." Jacob says, despite already being introduced. It is a well known fact that being introduced by someone else and introducing yourself are two different things. Neither Richie nor Eddie think anything about it when Jacob reintroduces himself. 

“Richie,” Richie says. 

“Cool. So have you guys volunteered at a shelter before?” Jacob asks. He crouches down to pet a kitten that’s rubbing up against his leg. 

Eddie looks at Richie. Richie shakes his head no. 

“No, neither of us have.” 

“Okay, well it’s a pretty chill job, you mostly just get to socialize with the animals. Lunch is around one so everyone's already fed and it’s too cold to walk the dogs today.” Jacob pauses to pick up the kitten. “These guys have already gotten plenty of attention so we’re gonna rotate them out in a few.” 

Eddie drops down closer to the floor and wiggles his fingers around, trying lure a cat over to him. He smiles when an orange and yellow tabby inches towards him with caution. Richie watches Eddie as he tentatively runs a hand from the cat’s cheek down to it’s tail. Richie heart starts to beat harder. 

“That’s Tiger. Pick him up if you can, we need to get them into their carriers.” Jacob says. Richie is grateful to hear that at least one animal is given a suitable name.

Eddie migrates closer to the cat and when he goes in to pick him up, there’s a bit of a struggle. He eventually gets a firm hold on the cat and securely pins him against his chest. 

Richie suddenly feels very stupid just standing there doing nothing. He glances around the room and then walks up to the cat nearest to him. He doesn’t give the cat any time to react before he leans down and scoops him up. 

After they rangle up all the cats and help Jacob get them back into their designated cages, they go back into the dog kennel, where Jacob teaches them how to leash a dog up and calmly direct them into the petting room. Most of the dogs Jacob lets them pull are on the smaller side and less talkative. 

Richie has an old cockerspail on the end of his leash. The dog didn't protest when he’d gone to clip the leash onto its collar, not like Jacob said some of them would. 

Once they return to the room, Richie counts a ug, a dashound, his cocker and another dog of an unknown breed. 

“These guys are really chill,” Jacob says. “You’ve probably noticed that a lot of the dogs out there are scarred up and a little rough looking. A good portion of the dogs at this shelter are rescued fight dogs.” Jacob explains. “It sucks because not many people want to adopt a fight dog.” 

The dachshund jumps at Jacob's legs and whines until Jacob bends down to give him attention, “Most of those dogs are really sweet, they just need a little more love than others.” 

“Is this a no kill shelter?” Eddie asks. 

“Unfortunately, no.” Jacob says, “I’ve lost a lot of friends.” Jacob looks sad when he says that and it makes Richie feels bad. 

“That’s so sad,” Eddie says, he grabs the little pug by the sides of the head and doesn’t pull away when it licks his face. The pug is so excited that his whole body is vibrating.

Richie looks down at the spaniel who’s stayed close to his feet. The dog hasn’t given much of a reaction to anything; he only watches as the other dogs run around and play with each other. 

Richie sits down on the floor and pets the dog between the ears. 

“That’s Bonnie,” Jacob says nodding his head at the cocker spaniel. 

“She’s very mellow ” Richie says. 

“Yeah, she’s a great dog,” Jacob agrees. “She’s just old. People don’t want to adopt old dogs, either.” 

Bonnie closes the gap between her and Richie’s leg so that she has somewhere to rest her head. She sniffs his hand lazily and the brushes her tongue against his index finger.

“She reminds me of your dog, Eddie.” 

Eddie looks over from where he’s being courted by the pug and the dachshund. He’s smiling so hard that his whole face is lit up. It clears up some of the sadness that’s taken place inside of Richie’s chest. 

“She’s cute,” he comments and then his attention is taken back by the dogs. 

They spend thirty minutes with these dogs before switching them out. They make it through a couple of rotations and Richie’s absolutely sure they’ve crept past the hour mark they agreed on. He doesn’t care. He likes dogs and he likes the way the dogs make Eddie look.

Eddie and Jacob have been in and out of conversation for the majority of the time. Richie doesn’t say much of anything unless someone’s talking to him directly. 

As of now, he’s playing a gentle game of tug-a-war with a chihuahua called Max. He refrains from using too much effort because he finds it funny that the little dog has about as much strength as Richie's pinky.

He hadn’t really been listening to Eddie and Jacob talk until Eddie asks, 

“So do you go to Hoover?” 

Now that Richie thinks about it, they are in Hoover territory. Quinton’s house is probably not even ten minutes from here. 

“No. I actually live in the group home across the street," Jacob says. "We have our own schooling program.” 

“Oh really? How’s that?” 

“It’s pretty shit, actually. It’s hard not to slack when no one’s forcing you to do it," Jacob says, “and most of the guys there are off the streets so they couldn’t give less of a fuck about school.” 

“Oh…how’d you end up there?” Eddie asks curiously. 

“My dad kicked me out after he found out I was looking at gay porn," Jacob's says bluntly.

Richie looks over at them. Eddie is wearing a strange expression on his face. 

“That’s a bit harsh.” Eddie says awkwardly. Jacob shrugs. 

“It is what it is,” he says, sounding indifferent, “It was a while ago. I’m over it.” 

Richie doesn’t think that anyone can get over something like that. 

“My mom doesn’t like it, either. She read a few texts between me and a guy and freaked out. We only talked about it once and now I think she just pretends it never happened.” Eddie says. He looks down at a small dog named Samson and scratches him behind the ear. 

“It’s crazy how fast they will switch up on you.” Jacob says, he looks a little more sour than he did just a minute ago. He sighs. 

A beat of silence goes by, he looks over at Richie and says, 

“What about you?” 

“What about me?” 

“Are you gay, depressed, abused? What’s your sob story?” 

“Uh," Richie replies, “I don’t know… I fuck guys sometimes.”

A slight smile lifts onto Jacob’s lips, “Really?” 

Richie shrugs.

Eddie is staring at him. 

“You don’t strike me as the type.” 

“Why?” Richie finds himself asking. 

Now Jacob shrugs, “Something about you is little rough. Chicks dig that shit.” 

“I fuck girls too.” 

“How diverse.” 

Eddie is still staring at him. 

-

During the ride home Richie says, 

“I’m about to die from starvation, is it okay if we stop and get dinner?” 

Eddie replies with, “Sounds good.” 

Richie would be lying if he said part him only asked so he could prolong his time with Eddie. The other part of him really just wants a burger.

They go back and forth on where to eat and as it turns out, both of them are terrible decision makers. Finally Richie says, 

“The next restaurant I see is where we’re eating.” 

Eddie does not protest.

They pull into the parking lot of an old dinner called Uncle E’s. Richie hasn’t been there since he was in middle school. 

The hostess who greets them is wearing a hideous green smock and when she smiles, Richie gets the pleasure of seeing her rotting gums. She seats them in front of a window and reaches down into the pockets of her apron to pull out a couple rolls of silverware. After placing them on the table, she says a generic, 

“Your waiter will be right with you." She walks away after that. 

Richie watches Eddie pick up the menu and skim down the front of it. Richie picks up his own and does the same. 

Their waitress turns out to be a girl from their school called Mary. Mary is very polite and good at small talk. She brings them drinks and then takes their orders. 

“I don’t get why everyone doesn’t volunteer. All we had to do was pet a bunch of dogs,” Eddie says. 

“I know. We should go again," Richie smiles. 

“I’m down.” Eddie leans back into his booth and taps his fingers against the table. There’s something gentle in his eyes. 

They talk more about dogs and that somehow leads them into a conversation about clones, which then turns into theories about why the dinosaurs went extinct and how the fuck humanity ended up taking their place. 

Richie thinks those are probably the best kinds of conversations to have. Eddie is not a boring person to talk to. 

Their food comes and they have to stop talking so that they can wolf down their hamburgers. Richie learns that Eddie hates tomatoes to the point where every time he comes into contact with one, he has to voice just how much he hates tomatoes. 

The kitchen put a tomato on Eddie’s burger even though he asked them not too. He picks it off with his fingertips as if he were picking up something just as disgusting as a worm. After Eddie pushes the tomato off to the side of plate, Richie smirks and reaches a hand forward. Richie picks up the tomato and makes sure to secure eye contact with Eddie as he shoves the whole thing into his mouth. Eddie griminces and shakes his head. 

“You’re disgusting.” He says. Richie smiles. 

After they're done eating they have to wait for the bill, and neither of them seemed to remember where their conversation had left off. Silence drapes over them. 

Eddie eventually says, 

“So...you fuck boys sometimes?” 

Richie is half surprised that Eddie would even decide to bring that up. When Richie looks at him, Eddie’s staring down into his glass of water.

“Uh… yeah,” Richie says. “You really wanna talk about it?” 

“Um..” now Eddie’s looking awkward. 

It makes Richie smirk. 

“Or are you just looking for a go?” He asks playfully. Eddie looks up at him snappily.

“Fuck no, I’m just- I don’t know- you were such an ass to me and I thought...” he says, the initial scrunch of his features flattens out as he struggles to come up with the right thing to say.

“It was because you were gay?” Richie says for him.

“Yeah,” Eddie affirms. 

“I mean- it’s possible that there could have been some resentment for it- you seemed fine with it and I- it was hard for me.” 

“It’s hard for everyone.” Eddie says. Richie nods because he knows that now. 

Mary brings them their tab, they tip her, pay and then leave. 

It’s dark outside and the roads are fairly vacant. It makes Richie feel less guilty for speeding. There are certain areas where he slows down because he’s all too familiar with the sort of places cops like to watch for prey. 

Halfway home, Eddie starts to ramble about why history class shouldn’t be a thing anymore. Halfway into the his own argument, he turns around and says he actually finds history interesting. 

“What I’m trying to say is teaching it is fine, just don’t test me over it," Eddie says. 

“You just contradicted yourself like four times within the last five minutes.” 

“Shut up.” 

Richie laughs. 

When they pull up to Eddie’s house, Scout runs out from underneath the garage door and books it over to Richie’s truck.

The force behind his tail-wagging causes his whole body to sway back and forth. Richie pops his door open to greet him and Scout bounds forward to lick Richie’s hand. Then he boasts upwards and puts his front paws just above Richie’s waistline. Richie smiles and shakes his hands down the length of Scout’s body, starting from his head, going down to his tail.

“You’re still the best dog in the world, huh?” he says quietly.

Eddie had gotten out of the truck around the same time Richie had. He circles around to where Richie and Scout are reuniting and leans against the hood of the truck to watch them. 

Richie eventually glances over at Eddie. His smile seems to shift around until it reaches its full capacity. Eddie gives him soft one in return.

Eddie tuts and pushes himself away from the grill of the truck. He calls Scout over and Scout trots up to him and gives his hand a lick. 

“Thanks for the ride," Eddie says. “Have a good night.” 

Richie’s smile dies down a bit and now he’s matching Eddie’s softness. He says, 

“Yeah. Goodnight.”


	13. Richie

Richie is at work when Rae’s ex wife comes into the store. 

She says, 

“This is bullshit, Rae,” and then slaps a piece of paper down onto the counter. She points at a three digit number that has several rings of red ink circled around it. “This is how much you owe me.” 

“I don’t have that kind of cash.” Rae says. He looks down to where her manicured finger lays on the paper and then back up to the black hole that is her vexed expression. His response pisses her off even more. 

“Okay, well then here’s an idea. How about every time you go to buy another six pack you stick the money in a fucking jar instead,” she seethes.

“Nice try, I get that shit for free.” 

She then proceeds to explode. 

“Are you really so wasted that you can’t find a single shit to give? You do remember that you have a child, right? A little girl who will soon realize what a pathetic piece of shit you are if you don’t sober up and try giving a fuck for once?” 

“Don’t you dare question my love for her.” Rae’s voice drops to a register that Richie’s never heard before. He really doesn’t want to be here right now. 

“I’m not questioning it, I just don’t fucking believe in it. No father wou-” 

“That is enough.” Rae stands up then. The way he says it is so heavy and raw that it scares Richie to the point where he’s fleeing into the break room. Once he’s closed the door behind him, he tries to focus on anything other than the shouting still bleeding through the crack under the door. 

He takes out his phone because that’s what people his age do in times like this. 

There’s a message from Eddie. 

He opens it. 

‘get your shit done fuckhead'

That lightens to mood. Richie can’t help but smile. 

‘Okay, but here’s the thing, I’m soooo busy working on our art project that I just don’t have the time'

Richie’s phone buzzes almost immediately. 

‘that is not fair' 

He gets another text that says,

‘art is an enjoyable activity. no one likes writing essays’ 

‘That not true. People go to school for journalism' 

‘okay well I don’t like writing essays.’ 

‘Neither do I"

‘get your shit done’

‘Yo no hablo ingles’

‘I’m going to destroy you’

‘Que?’

‘boy you better watch out'

For some reason, that specific text made Richie think about having sex with Eddie.

‘The only way I’m gonna do it is if you come over and force me to'

‘you are useless'

‘Thank you' 

-

Richie and Quinton have been lounging in Quinton’s attic for the past half hour. There are a lot of treasures up there that Richie likes to look at.

There’s an old, dusty mattress that Quinton is laying on, and Richie has an arm swallowed in the gold chest right next to it. There’s a small golden lion mounted just above the keyhole that draws Richie over to the chest every time he’s up here. He likes to touch it. 

Earlier, even though Richie already knew the answer, he had asked if he could take the chest home. His question sent Quinton into the same old tangent about how everything in this attic is valuable to his parents and even though they haven’t touched any of this shit for almost seven years, one day they might want to. 

He pops the chest open anyways and digs around the insides. He finds a hammer, a chain, an old toy car and a VHS copy of ‘The Last Unicorn'.

“You guys own the most random shit.” 

“My grandma owned a pawn shop.” 

“Yeah, it shows.”

Quinton has been messing around on his phone for the majority of the time Richie’s been over. Richie almost asks if he’s talking to a girl or something but decides against it. He knows Quinton and females are a touchy subject.

“I think Ben’s gonna come over.” 

“What? Ben, who?” 

“You know- Ben- from when we did acid.” 

“You guys still talk?” 

“Yeah he’s cool as fuck,” Quinton says, drawing the word ‘fuck’ out. 

Richie hadn’t expected that. Quinton doesn’t find a lot of people to be ‘cool as fuck'. Quinton’s a picky guy. 

“He might bring Eddie too.” 

If Richie wasn’t swayed before, he sure is now. 

“Okay.” 

About an hour later, Quinton’s sister pokes her head through the floor door and lets them know that Eddie and Ben are at the front door. Quinton says, 

“Well let them the hell in.” 

 

-

 

“It’s musty as fuck up here,” Ben says once he and Eddie are standing side by side in the attic. 

“Wow, is that a jukebox?” Eddie asks, immediately drawn to the other side of the room by the silver and teal hunk of metal sitting under a port window.

“Sure is,” Quinton says bouncing up from his place on the mattress. 

“His grandma owned a pawn shop,” Richie explains. 

“This is sick as hell," Eddie says reaching out to touch it’s rusted siding. “Does it work?” 

“Probably not," Quinton responds. 

It doesn’t take long for Eddie to move on from the jukebox. Much like Richie, he becomes enamored by a lot of the stuff up here. Richie goes over to help him sift through some of the shit sitting inside of one of the many antique dressers. This specific dresser dates back into the 1800’s. 

“I’ve been through most of this stuff more than once.” Richie says, holding up an awkward looking dog figurine. Eddie looks at it and smiles. 

“Hey, that kind of looks like Roger.” Eddie says. Richie hadn’t remembered the name of the spotted dog that the figurine resemembled, but he was thinking the same thing. 

“Roger,” Richie mutters, “I still can’t get over that. Who would name a dog Roger?” 

“Jacob did say a lot of the employee’s children come up with their names.” 

“You would think children would be more creative. Shouldn’t this prove they aren’t responsible enough for that kind of a job?” 

“Maybe you’ve found a new line of work.” 

“You might be right," Richie says, he puts the Roger look-alike figurine down and picks up an old hand held mirror. “This definitely has the power to summon the devil.”

“Well don’t pick it up!” Eddie says. He swats at Richie’s arm and scoots backwards. 

“Eddie’s sensitive to ghosts and other worldly spirits.” Ben says. He’s sitting on the mattress next to Quinton. 

“Shit, really?” 

Eddie squirms around, “I just don’t like to fuck around with that shit.” 

“I was kidding.” Richie says. He places the mirror back into the drawer and when he tries to push it closed, it becomes jammed. “I guess the devil does not want to be ignored,” he mumbles. 

“Don’t," Eddie warns. 

Richie jiggles the drawer up and down a couple times before realizing the problem: it’s off its track. He lets out a small sound of frustration and contemplates leaving it to hang open. He doesn’t. 

Richie stands up and yanks the drawer completely out of its socket. He turns it on its side, being mindful of the possessions inside and does his best to line it up on the tracks before he pushes on it. Eventually, he feels it snap into place and slides it in. 

“You didn’t have to do all that," Quinton says. 

“There once was a man who lived one hundred years ago who probably spent a good portion of his life making that,” Richie responds. 

“Well, when you put it that way...” 

Richie glances down and finds Eddie staring at him. 

Later, they migrate into Quinton’s room because Quinton and Ben’s trash talking gets so out of hand that they decide the only way to settle it is in a video game match. Now they’re screaming at each other and punching buttons on their controllers in a very violent manner. Richie can already sense a headache forming. Eddie looks like he already has one. 

He and Eddie are standing in the reading nook that Quinton’s mother had put together for him when he was younger. She had hoped the nook would trigger Quinton to take an interest in something other than being a little shit. It didn’t. Quinton’s bookshelf is filled with classics and other considerably great works of literature, but Richie doesn’t think he’s ever touched a single one.

Eddie brushes his fingers against their spines as he reads over them. He pulls a few out for inspection. Richie does the same. 

“I actually kind of hate classics.” Richie says. Eddie looks at him and smiles. 

“I do, too.” 

At some point, Quinton and Ben trade their controllers for a conversation and by the time Richie notices, he and Eddie are already ten minutes into a documentary about government corruption. They started picking at the topic and Eddie’s jaw dropped when Richie mentioned that he’d never seen this specific video.

“It’s what all great conspiritists swear by, how have you not seen it?” Eddie had said. 

“Put it on,” Richie had replied and Eddie had put it on. 

They laid down on their stomachs and spread out on top of Quinton’s comforter, close enough to where their sides were touching. Richie only thought about sex with Eddie a total of three times. He would say that’s an achievement. 

When the movie is over, Richie feels fired up and ready to fight a politician.

Instead, he and Eddie decide they should probably go talk to the other half of the room. 

“What are you guys talking about?” Richie says, dropping down into one of the bean bags on the floor. 

“Cool shit that you wouldn’t understand.” Quinton says, pitching his voice an octave higher. 

“Cool shit, huh?” 

“Yeah, like rock climbing.” Ben chirps in. Quinton looks over at him. 

“Yeah, Ben’s going to go rock climbing with me," Quinton says in a snobby voice.

“Are you trying to make me jealous or something?” Richie asks. Eddie comes over and sits down on the floor next to him. 

“No. I’m just letting you know that you’re a shitty friend.”

“Because I won’t go rock climbing with you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Eddie, you suck too.” Ben blurts. Eddie makes a face. 

“I’m not risking my life to climb a fucking rock," Eddie says. 

“Then you and Richie can form a lame loser club since only people who climb rocks can be a part of our super awesome club.” 

“That entire sentence sounded as if it were crafted by a five year old,” Eddie says. 

“Well that makes no sense because I’m seven and three quarters.”

Quinton starts laughing.

Richie supposes he doesn’t mind being in the lame loser club if it means Eddie’s there too.

That’s probably a really lame thought for him to have. 

-

Luciano invites Richie over after school on Tuesday.

Richie and Eddie talked about hanging out on Tuesday, for project purposes, but Eddie had a thing he had to do instead.

So Richie goes over to Luciano’s and they have sex in his basement. 

When they’re done, they watch a movie.

Richie almost forgets that Luciano has a brother until he watches him walk halfway down the stairs, realize the space is being occupied, and zip right back up them again.

“Fuck,” Richie says after he hears the door close. 

“What?” Luciano asks. 

“Your brother-” Richie says. He hesitates only because he’s never been the one to snitch. “He tried to rob the convenience store I work at.” 

Luciano doesn’t say anything for a while, he just kind of stares at Richie as if he were waiting for him to say, ‘I’m fucking with you.’

“You’re fucking with me.” 

Richie laughs, but it’s stiff and awkward. “No, I’m not. He wasn’t very successful, all I had to do was pick up the phone like I was calling the cops and he dropped everything and ran.” 

“Holy shit, you’re serious,” Luciano says, his eyes widening, “he’s fourteen years old.” 

“When did you start selling drugs?” 

Luciano looks at him like he didn’t find that funny.

“I’m going to beat the fuck outta him.” 

“Good luck.” 

The sound of the movie fills up the silence between them.

Luciano has this expression on his face, as if he’s thinking hard about something and after a little while, he says, 

“I’ll be right back.” 

Richie wonders if he’s accidentally started a war. 

He half expects to hear some crashing noises and a rush of commotion above him as Luciano beats the shit out of his brother. But what actually happens is Luciano finds Abril in the kitchen making a sandwich and without much of a warning, grabs him by the wrist and drags him down into the basement where Richie is spread out on the sofa with sex hair and a deep uninterest in the action movie playing out in front of him. 

Luciano shoves Abril directly into Richie’s line of sight and says, 

“Say you're fucking sorry.” 

“What?” Abril says, confused. He glances over at his brother before looking back to Richie. 

“Robbing a convenience store? Are you fucking kidding me, Abril?” Luciano's voice is straining by the time he’s done speaking and he looks so frustrated he’s almost unrecognizable. 

Richie really wishes this wasn’t happening in front of him. He’s never been a fan of confrontation. 

Abril’s eyes broaden as they remain locked on Richie’s slumping figure. 

“Wait-” he starts. His gaze crosses between the two of them a few times before it settles on Luciano. 

“Don’t tell mom.” 

“Say your fucking sorry.” Luciano repeats.

Abril looks at Richie and says, “I’m sorry,” then turns back to his brother to say, “Ano, I’m serious, please.” 

“My silence will cost you,” Luciano says, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“What do you want?” 

“You’re going to do my chores for two months,” Luciano walks over and takes a seat next to Richie, who has slid so far down into the leather couch that he’s almost laying on his back. 

“Jesus- Ano-”

“I don’t want to hear any complaints. Next time don’t act like a fucking idiot.” 

Abril turns his focus back to the melting boy that is Richie Tozier and says, “Look I really am sorry, it was a stupid dare.” 

“A fucking dare? Was it that fuckhead Barth?” 

Richie’s heard the name Barth before. There’s a Freshman called Gage Barth who’s name is carved into the wall of the detention room 475. He’s also a rumored kleptomaniac. Richie supposes that would make sense. 

“I’m not a rat," Abril says. 

“Not a rat, huh? Okay, let’s see how well your integrity holds up once you’re actually arrested for some dumbass dare. This time it’s stealing candy, next time it could be stealing a fucking car or drugs or some other dumb shit. I know how this game works. You need to be careful, people like that aren’t your friends. They aren’t worth protecting.” 

“Ano-”

“Just get the fuck outta my face.” 

Abril opens his mouth to argue, but it slowly closes after a few seconds. He stands there, as stiff as a lamp pole, and then finally decides that there’s nothing more he can do to improve his situation. He takes off up the stairs.  
Once they hear the click of the door closing, Luciano sighs. 

“Thank you so much for including me in that.” Richie says sarcastically. He pulls himself upward so that he’s sitting like a normal human being. 

“You’re welcome.” 

“That made me want to die.” 

“Sorry, I figured that if someone tried to rob my business I’d want an apology.” 

“But you sell drugs, aren’t you like- supposed to shoot anyone who tries to rob you?” 

 

Luciano stares at him, “Who the fuck do you think I am?” 

Richie shrugs. 

A few minutes go by and Richie’s trying to figure out the pieces of the movie he’d missed during the uncomfortable quarrel that took place in front of him. He gives up soon after he starts because he really never cared about the movie to begin with. 

He turns to Luciano. 

“Wanna go again?” 

Luciano doesn’t give him a yes right away, but eventually he says, “Let me lock the door.” 

Round two leaves them sweaty and breathless. Luciano falls into a position where he’s pushed up against Richie’s side, his head resting on Richie’s shoulder. They usually don’t lay with each other like that.

After remaining still for so long, Luciano asks, “Is there a reason you don’t date?” 

Richie doesn’t really have a definite answer for that question. 

“I don’t know...why? You wanna date me?” 

“N-no- I was just curious.” 

“Sure.” 

Luciano pushes himself up off of Richie so that he can look him in the eye. 

“No, really.” 

“Relax, I’m just kidding.” Richie says sitting up. He leans over the edge of the couch and fishes around for his tee shirt. Once Luciano is situated a few inches away from him, he slips it on.

“Right," Luciano says, watching him dress. 

“I gotta go.” 

“Okay.” 

-

 

Beverly is sitting in Richie’s sofa crease, and he’s pretending that he isn’t bothered by it. 

She has her arms crossed and there’s a shadow of a pout on her face. She’s staring at the T.V. 

She hasn’t said anything to him since she and her mother arrived. Sharron’s in the kitchen with his father and Richie’s at the dining room table, trying to get his math homework done. He gives up thirty minutes in and shoves everything into his backpack. He kicks the bag into the corner of the room.

Fuck math.

He goes over and sits down next to Beverly. She doesn’t acknowledge him at all. 

“You mad or something?” he asks. 

“No,” she replies. 

But she says it without any conviction whatsoever. He does not believe her.

They watch a rerun of some old show from the nineties in silence and Richie doesn’t care that Beverly isn’t talking to him. He just doesn’t. 

When they sit down at the dinner table, more silence sets in and their parents start to pick up on the sense that something is wrong. 

“Are you two fighting?” Richie’s father asks to neither of them in particular.

Richie shakes his head but Beverly opens her mouth and says, “We aren’t fighting. I just don’t appreciate the way he treats me.” 

Richie snaps his head in her direction and glares. She meets it. 

“What do you even mean?” Richie says, frustrated. 

“You want me to spell it out for you? Stop calling me a whore.” 

Richie has a strong urge to jump across the table, grab her by her hair and throw her on the ground. 

“What?” Richie’s father says, his voice is similar to how sandpaper would feel scraping through the inside of his ears. “You fucking apologize right now.” The tone he’s using is one he usually only uses when he’s in his uniform, or if he and Richie are alone. Sharron looks mildly uncomfortable. 

A lot of kids would give Beverly the finger while telling their father to go fuck himself. A lot of them would get up, storm out of the room in some dramatic charade as they declare the unjust. 

Richie doesn’t do any of that. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, but Beverly doesn’t look satisfied, she looks almost as if she was expecting the finger. 

“We’ll talk about it later.” His father says gruffly. Richie hates when his father says that. 

He wants to kick Beverly in the head. 

-

Sometimes Eddie texts him. 

‘Is your shit done?’

‘Come over and we can do it together' 

‘You fucking suck'

‘Pls’ 

‘Okay’

And that’s how Eddie ends up coming over on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

When Eddie texts him that he’s only five minutes away, Richie sits outside on the porch and waits for him. He almost goes back inside a few times because he’s cold and second guessing whether or not it’s weird to be sitting on your front porch waiting for someone. Eventually, he decides that it is weird. But he continues to sit there and wait anyways.

An early 2000 model sports car pulls up to the curb. There’s a guy behind the wheel that Richie’s never seen before. He watches Eddie lean into the dude, and Richie is unable to determine whether or not they had just kissed or if they were just talking. Either way, Richie wishes he didn’t see that.

Eddie gets out of the car and smiles at Richie as he walks up to the house. 

Richie shakes his uneasiness pretty quickly and smiles back. 

Once Eddie’s on the porch, he says, “I like the red door.” 

“Thanks,” Richie says, “back when this house was built, in eighteen hundreds, a red door meant ‘whore house.’ Travelers would stop here to buy supplies and then go upstairs to fuck prostitutes.” 

“Sounds like a party.” 

They go inside and Richie gives a quick house tour, which is really just him pointing to different areas of the house and saying, “Living room, kitchen, bathroom, hallway, upstairs.” 

They go upstairs, and Richie never noticed how creaky his staircase is until now. He only notices this because he’s feeling a little nervous, and when Richie feels nervous he tends to focus on the things that don’t matter. It helps him take his mind off of being nervous.

After they’ve reached the second floor, Richie continues with, “Second bathroom, dad’s room, my room.”

They enter Richie’s room and Richie opens up his arms, gesturing around. He says, “And this is where most of the brothels took place.” 

Eddie looks around, "How lovely.” 

They sit on Richie’s bed and Richie has to remind his dick that they aren’t about to do what it wants them to do.

He reaches over and opens up the bottom compartment of his night side table. He pulls out their art project and hands it over to Eddie. It’s finished. 

“Richie,” Eddie says, looking down at it, “this is so cool.” 

Richie’s heart starts to beat harder.

“Seriously," Eddie glances up at him and their eyes meet. “You should be an artist.” 

Richie laughs because it reminds him of what people would say to him in elementary school. 

“That wouldn’t be a very viable career choice,” Richie says.

“It would be if you're talented.” 

“I don’t even really care about art.” 

Eddie looks at him, then back down at the picture. He stares at it for a long time. 

“This sure looks like you care,” Eddie says, holding it out for Richie to take. 

“I just don’t like making shitty looking things when I know I can do better,” Richie takes it from him. “Honestly, I do it so that people don’t assume I suck.” 

“That is such bullshit. Why do you care what anyone else thinks?” 

Richie shrugs and says, “Doesn’t everyone?” 

Eddie stares at him and he stares back. 

“I guess.” 

Richie flops down on his back and looks up at the ceiling. 

“So if you’re not going to be an artist, then what are you going to do?” Eddie asks. 

That’s a good question, one that’s floated around Richie’s subconscious for a long time, somehow without ever properly being addressed. He uses his elbows to prop himself up and lifts his head so he’s gazing forward. Eddie watches him. “I’m curious,” he explains. Richie can see that he really does look curious.

“Uh... I don’t know,” Richie says. 

“That’s okay, not a lot of people do," Eddie responds. It’s a very generic response, something he’s heard a lot. “I think I’m going to go for business.” 

Richie pictures Eddie in an office, wearing a business suit and stapling some very important files together for his next very important business meeting. It makes Richie want to have sex with him. 

“Why business?” Richie asks. Eddie shrugs. 

“Sounds like a good idea,” he says.

Richie doesn’t even realize he’s making a face until Eddie says, “Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s a shitty reason to pursue something and that I’ll probably drop out and end up homeless, but it’s all I’ve got right now.” 

“Well, at least you have a plan,” Richie sighs. “My dad wants me to be a cop.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, “Why a cop? Is he a cop?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I didn’t know that.” 

“It’s not like I ever told you. I don’t know what your parents do for a living, either.” 

Richie knows that Eddie only has a mother. He uses the term ‘parents’ because he doesn’t want to come off like he knows too much. Like he’s some kind of a stalker or something. Because he isn’t. 

“My mom’s an affiliate marketer," Eddie says. “Honestly, I really don’t even know what that is- and my dad died before I knew him, but he was a lawyer.” 

Richie nods, “I didn’t know my mom either, apparently she was a whore. If there’s anything my dad hates more drug addicts, it’s whores.”

“But she’s alive?” Eddie asks with that same curious look on his face. Richie wonders when he got so curious. 

“I don’t know. My dad won’t talk about her.” 

“That’s kind of fucked up.” 

Richie shrugs, “It doesn’t matter anymore. If she wanted to see me then she would have found a way by now.” 

Eddie’s quiet after that and Richie kind of feels bad. Eddie’s probably thinking about how if his father was out there, alive, he’d at least try to find him. 

“We should probably finish the essay.” Eddie finally says. He empties the contents of his backpack onto Richie’s bed and cracks open his elderly looking laptop. 

They finish the essay. 

It takes a whole of three hours, mainly because they both have the attention span of a chair, and Eddie has a bad habit of keeping multiple tabs open, which in turn, triggers Richie’s bad habit of being a snoop.

“Why isn’t eleven pronounced onety-one?” Richie says, reading from the google search bar. He’d randomly clicked on one of Eddie’s opened tabs. “Are you a fucking child?”

“Hey, don’t look at my shit.” 

“Well what’s the answer?” 

“It has something to do with the way we inherited the greek pronunciation of numbers. It was a boring answer.” 

“What were you expecting?” 

“I don’t know- a passionate story about a caveman’s struggle to come up with the numeric system.” 

Richie clicks over to another tab. One that Eddie had probably forgotten was open. 

He’d been googling different flavors of lube. 

Richie’s heart beats faster. He debates whether or not to say something, or just ignore it and spare them the chance of an awkward conversation. He eventually decides to put on half of a smirk and ask, “You got a boyfriend, Eddie?” 

Eddie goes completely still for a moment. His head snaps forward as he meets Richie’s eyes. The way his features shift around makes it looks like he’d just remembered what his search history looks like.

“Oh that- that isn’t what you think-” Eddie says, his cheeks starting to tint, and he looks a little flustered. It makes Richie want to have sex with him.

Richie’s smirk continues to grow and he’d give anything, anything, to do Eddie right here and right now. 

“Is it that guy who dropped you off?” 

“I- uh- yeah.” 

The nervous tinge in Eddie's voice is making Richie go fucking insane. He wonders if Eddie can tell. He wonders how obvious he is. 

He doesn’t think he cares very much anymore. 

If Richie was the same person he was when he was in middle school, he probably would have taken a fistfull of Eddie’s shirt, pushed their faces together and then stuck his hands down Eddie’s pants because that’s exactly what he wants to do in that very moment. There are many differences between then and now. Now, he understands and cares about others feelings (most of the time) and tries to avoid certain actions that would upset people. That would most likely upset Eddie. 

He knows that he’s not going to touch Eddie unless Eddie wants him too. 

“So...who is he?” Richie asks. He knows his intentions only become more apparent the longer he walks on the topic, but it’s hard to care when he wants to know so badly.

Eddie looks up at him again.

“Do you really want to talk about it?” Eddie asks. The answer is yes, Richie does want to talk about it. He wants to know about the kind of guy that turns Eddie on, that makes his heart thump and his mouth water. 

He shrugs. 

All Eddie says is, “It’s complicated,” and leaves it at that.


	14. Richie

Tuesday is a bad day. 

Richie’s dad has a day off and Richie is supposed to be at basketball practice. 

Richie’s actually in the library, with Eddie. And after they spend to many hours pretending to study, they call it quits and go their separate ways, having absorbed nothing other than each other’s favorite cheeses and how they like their eggs. 

Eddie likes his over easy. Richie will only eat them scrambled. 

When Richie leaves the library, he ends up taking the main hallway so he can get to the parking lot faster. The main hallway is a hallway he usually avoids using after school because it’s where all the athletes like to hang out after practice. He bites the bullet because the only other option is the exit next to the library and that would have him walking around the entire school. 

However, he realizes he’s made a mistake once he reaches the lobby, where the sweaty, smelly, basketball team is filing out of the gym. 

Almost immediately he spots Henry Bowers and his father standing on the other side of the hallway, apart from the crowd, looking to be having a conversation. 

Within that moment of realization, Richie feels his bones crumble inside of his body. 

He freezes up and continues to stand there, watching them. His father is frowning. Henry is smiling. 

Henry must see him out of the corner of his eye because he soon turns and looks in Richie’s direction. His grin grows wider when their eyes meet and he offers Richie a little wave. 

Then his father looks at him and there’s a certain coldness from the way his eyes lay over Richie that makes the ends of his nerves coil. Richie does not move, not even an inch.

His dad and Henry exchange a few more words before Wentworth Tozier approaches him in these slow long strides that remind Richie of a man made of armor. 

He gets real close to Richie’s face and says, 

“Thought I’d stop by and see if you wanted to get dinner after practice, but I think I’ll just see you at home.” The way he talks is low and hushed, like he’s telling a secret. It makes Richie feel sick. 

His father roughly clasps him on the shoulder, his nails fringing into his skin a bit. Then he simply lets go and walks past him. 

Richie does not want to go home. 

-

In the parking lot, Henry slaunters up to him in a way that suggests he probably thinks more highly of himself than everyone else does. 

Richie almost hops in his car and backs him over. 

Henry leans up against Richie’s truck and the smugness in his expression is so bold that it extinguishes the rest of whatever cool Richie has managed to keep.

“Don’t fucking touch my truck.” Richie snaps, the grip he has on his composure has loosened up enough to where it’s showing. This reaction takes Henry’s duchery to a whole new level. 

Henry doesn’t move, and Richie stares at him. 

“That’s a pretty stupid thing to lie about," Henry says. 

“It’s none of your business.” 

“You should have tried out when you had the chance, we would have loved to have you on the team.” 

“Fuck off.” Richie reaches for the door handle but Henry steps in front of him, blocking him. It takes a whole lot of self restraint for Richie not to drill his fist into the underside of Henry’s jaw. 

“What’s your problem with me, Richie?” 

“You’re a piece of shit.” 

“Don’t act like you’re any better.” Henry says. Richie just stares at him. 

The truth is, Richie is afraid that Henry may be right about that. 

He doesn’t like to be around Henry and all his old friends for a lot of reasons. The fact that they remind him of himself is one of them. 

“Get the fuck out of my way.” Richie’s voice is starting to leak things he doesn’t want it to. He knows he’s giving Henry too much attention, similar to how feeding a stray cat once will lead it to believe you will feed it again.

Henry sighs and steps to the side. Richie shoulders past him and climbs into his truck. He slams the door and jams the key into the ignition. The truck rumbles to life and when he pulls out of his parking spot, Henry’s still standing there watching him. 

On his drive home, Richie almost makes an intentional wrong turn a few times. He thinks about fleeing to a different state, like Arkansa, or maybe Ohio. And about how he would probably take shelter in a shitty hotel and find another job at another shitty convenience store where he’d work full-time and live off of peanut butter sandwiches and booze. At the end of that life, he pictures himself turning out a lot like Rae. 

He also thinks about what it be like to crash his truck into one of the side rails on the bridge conjoining the towns of Cherry and Waynesville. He pictures what it would look after he’s thrown over the steering wheel and all the glass in his windshield is broken and the grill of the truck is pushed all the way into the backseat. It’d be a mess. 

In the end, he goes home and sits in his driveway for twenty minutes before going inside. 

-

The next day when he goes downstairs that morning, he sees that his dad made him breakfast before he left for work. It’s not something he always does, but it’s how Richie knows he’s feeling a little remorseful. 

Richie shouldn’t have lied like that. 

Richie’s dad isn’t a bad person. He does more for Richie than a lot of parents care to do for their children. He goes to work every day, even puts his life in danger all so that Richie can live a comfortable lifestyle. He sees to it that Richie is fed and has clothes on his body and a strong male figure in his life that he can look up too. 

Richie isn’t mad at him. 

He’s mad at himself.

He goes to school and when Beverly sees him, she tells him he looks like he’s been hit by a bus. Richie says, 

“Thanks." But it makes him self conscious. 

Henry stands next to him in the lunch line and says, 

“Daddy was a little rough, wouldn’t you say?” 

Richie does not have the energy to get angry; however, in that very instant, he makes a promise to himself that he will destroy Henry.

For now he just turns to him and drops his voice low as he says, 

“I don’t know Henry, you’re a pretty experienced punching bag so you tell me.” 

“Watch it Tozier, those bruises could be darker.” 

Richie doesn’t waste another breath responding. 

He buys his lunch and sits down with a group of people who don’t seem to protest his existence. 

-

The last time Quinton had come over was to pick up some tee shirts Richie had borrowed and never returned. 

Richie would habitually swipe Quinton’s tee shirt’s off his bedroom floor, slip them on and wear them home. When he got home, he’d take the shirt off, bundle it up and stick it with the rest of the ‘Quinton shirt’ collection he has piling up in his sock drawer. He’s been keeping them there for the day when Quinton catches on.

Richie had done this because he wanted to see how many shirts he could steal without Quinton noticing. And also because he’s an asshole.

He’d made it to sixteen before he mistakenly took one of Quinton’s favorite shirts, the one that looked like it was soaked in space if space was a geometric landmine. Quinton is a big fan of shapes. 

When Quinton walked into Richie’s room, there had been pile of tee shirts neatly folded and sitting on Richie’s bed. 

“Is it one of these?” Quinton had asked. 

“Yeah, actually all of those are your's,” Richie said. 

“What?” Quinton looked at him.

“I’ve been stealing your tee shirts for over a year now.” 

“What?” Quinton repeats. 

“I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.” 

“What?” 

“You have a lot of tee shirts.” 

Quinton had gone over to sit on the brink of Richie’s bed and sift through the mountain of tee shirts. He would make the same surprised, awed expression every time he encountered a shirt that he thought he’d seen the last of. 

This was a few days ago. Quinton wasn’t angry about it.

Quinton calls him on a Wednesday, and he’s angry then. 

Richie doesn’t answer until around the seventh ring. He hears his phone going off, but he has a tough time locating its whereabouts. It’s under his bed. 

He’s confused as to why Quinton’s calling him in the first place. Over the course of their entire friendship, Quinton has never once called him. Young people don’t make phone calls anymore. It is a well known fact that you have to be over the age of twenty-five to make a phone call. 

Richie answers the phone with a ‘hello?’ and he quickly learns why Quinton had decided a phone call would be more efficient than a text.

Quinton says, “Tozier, I’ve been debating whether or not I should come over there and kick your fucking ass for the past thirty minutes.” 

Quinton never calls Richie by his last name. Quinton only calls people by their last name when he wants to kick their fucking ass. 

This, and the way his voice plays into Richie’s ear, is how Richie gets the feeling that he is being serious. 

“Hey, what-” Richie is unable to finish what he is going to say because Quinton soon intervenes. 

"You think you can just fuck with my family like that? Marie just told that you had sex Shaun! What the fuck Richie, you never even told me you’re gay!” 

Richie moves the phone away from his ear slightly, like distancing it would help soften the impact. 

Richie doesn’t know what to say. 

Shaun is Quinton’s cousin, and Richie had slept with Shaun thinking that no one would ever know anything about it. It wasn’t something that he had an uncontrollable desire to do, but Shaun had asked him about it more than once and Richie’s never been good at saying no to that kind of thing. 

“You going to fucking say something?” Quinton’s voice is so uneven it almost translates like static.

“I’m sorry.” 

“You’re a piece of shit," Quinton hangs up on him.

When it rains, it fucking pours. 

-

Richie’s in an awful mood for the next couple days. 

Initially, his first thought was that Quinton had been overreacting. Then he remembers all the times Quinton’s parents would talk about how important God’s judgement is when it comes to sins like sex. 

That mentality has always stuck with Quinton and encouraged him to stay wary of girls, almost to the point where he’s scared of them. 

Richie guesses he understands why Quinton is so upset. 

When Quinton started talking to Beverly, Richie didn’t know anything about it. They had only met once in passing, but apparently that was enough for Beverly to find him on social media and reach out to him. By the time Richie came to realize that it was Beverly’s name popping up on Quinton’s phone screen, it was too late. 

Well, Richie supposes it wasn’t actually ‘too late,’ and that there had still been time for him to warn Quinton about Beverly’s misleading tactics. But what’s a guy supposed to do when two of his only friends are at odds?

Quinton hadn’t been in love with Beverly, it was his inexperience that hurt him the most. He’d never been in that kind of a situation with a girl before. He didn’t know how to deal with those feelings. He ended up having sex with her because that’s what his hormonal teenage instincts urged him to do. 

Beverly never lied to Quinton, she never told him they were exclusive. Quinton had just assumed. He didn’t understand how someone could have those kinds of conversations with him and be with other guys at the same time. 

It hurt him a lot, and Richie wasn’t very good at comforting him. 

-

Richie’s a little confused.

Though, he supposes it’s a pleasant kind of confused. 

He’s pleasantly confused as to why Eddie is still talking to him when their projects are finished and there’s absolutely nothing binding them together. 

Not that he’s complaining.

“Ben and Quinton were talking about hanging out this weekend. I’ll go if you go.” Eddie mentions. They’re sitting in art class mixing paint together for a color wheel project.

“Oh… uh,” Richie says, squirting more yellow onto his palette. “Quinton kind of hates me right now.” 

Eddie’s quiet for a few seconds. It looks like he’s trying to read Richie’s expression. 

“Why?” he asks. Richie sighs. 

“Um…” He isn’t sure if he wants to talk about this with Eddie. “It’s kind of a long story.” It actually isn’t. 

Eddie just stares at him. 

Richie looks down at the mess Eddie’s made on his tray of paints. He points to one of the more yellow shades and says, 

“Add more blue to that.” 

Eddie looks down at the blob of yellow Richie’s gesturing to and reaches over to grab the tube of blue paint. He squirts far too much onto his palette. 

Richie says, “Hey take it easy, you only need a little, it’s really pigmented.” 

Eddie lets out a little moan and slams the tube of paint down onto the table. 

“Can you just do it?” 

Richie sighs through his nose. He always has trouble saying no to Eddie. 

“Okay,” he says. He slithers a hand past Eddie and over to where his paintbrush is laying in a mess of magenta. “You need to keep your brush clean,” he scolds. 

Eddie rolls his eyes, “Yeah yeah."

Richie dips the very tip of the brush into the blue, then swirls it into the yellow, and the shade evolves into something slightly less hideous. Eddie looks as if he’d just watched Richie perform a magic trick. 

Richie extends his arm in Eddie’s direction, offering the brush to him. Their hands meet and Richie says, 

“Why the fuck is your hand so cold?” 

“I don’t know, they’re always cold.” Eddie replies. Without thinking, Richie clasps both his hands around Eddie’s smaller one, pinning the paint brush between their fingers.

“Oh my god,” he says, “I can feel you sucking the warmth out of me.” 

Eddie laughs and after a few short seconds, Richie realizes what he’s doing and pulls away. 

“Sorry.” He coughs awkwardly. He puts his gaze forward and Eddie laughs again. 

“When did you get so awkward?” Eddie asks. Richie shrugs. 

“When did you become so outspoken?” Richie retorts.

Eddie smiles at him. 

“Years of your bullshit taught me how to counter other people’s bullshit.” 

“You're welcome," Richie says. 

“Yes, thank you so very much for preparing me for the real world.” 

Richie waves a hand in his direction and says, “It was my pleasure.” 

After about a minute, the silence weighs sort of heavy and then Eddie asks, 

“Was there- a reason why?” 

“Yeah." Richie responds without hesitation. He looks Eddie directly in the eyes, and he isn’t smiling anymore

It takes Eddie a couple seconds to ask, “Why?” 

“I think you already know why.” 

Eddie blinks and Richie is starting to feel overheated. He has to look away. He puts his attention back into his project.

Eddie doesn’t say anything else. 

-

Richie’s been feeling down lately, and there’s something about that dark cloud hovering above his atmosphere that encourages him to give into his desires of revenge. And to be frank, when an opportunity like this is served to him in such a delectable, mouth watering fashion, there’s no way he can’t not indulge. 

During Christmas break he goes to a party where he ignores Beverly and meets up with a boy called Xavier. Xavier is on the basketball team. Xavier is also gay. Nobody knows anything about that, though.

Xavier is also kind of a dick, but that’s what Richie likes about him. Having Xavier pressed into the mattress with his cheek smashed into the sheets while he’s rendered speechless really does something for Richie. 

Afterwards, they’re laying in Xavier’s bed, and Richie usually doesn’t stick around after this sort of thing, but he’s completely spent and finds himself in need of a recharge. So he lays there. 

Xavier’s a few inches to the right of him, playing on his phone. He lets a quick breath out through his nose, like he’s found something funny. Richie subconsciously channels that humanistic trait that makes people ask ‘what?’ in situations like this. He fights it off so he doesn’t end up saying that embarrassing ‘what?’ because Richie doesn’t actually care to know the reason for Xavier’s weird half laugh. He and Xavier aren’t the kind of people that care about what each other find funny. 

So he really doesn’t expect Xavier to lean into him and show him what it is he had found to be funny. 

Xavier says, “Check these out,” before handing his phone over and allowing Richie to flip through a photo gallery of Henry Bowers. Henry Bowers is shitfaced in most of the pictures. None of the pictures are flattering. 

“I know Bowers isn’t your favorite person so I thought you’d enjoy those." Xavier says, and he is right. Richie finds himself hosting a substantial amount of satisfaction as he looks through the photos. 

“These are beautiful.” He says. Xavier does his breathy half laugh again and when Richie reaches the last picture, he gives the phone back and watches Xavier smile down at it. 

“Henry’s like one of the worst people I’ve ever met; yet, somehow, he has my respect,” Xavier says, “There’s just something about him.”

Richie stares into Xavier’s face as he says, “He’s psychotic. He uses other’s weaknesses to make friends. Always has.” 

Xavier only nods, seeming to have lost interest in the conversation as something else on his phone distracts him. 

A few minutes later, Xavier drops his phone onto his night stand and declares that he’s going to take a shower. Xavier hadn’t insinuated that he’d like for Richie to be gone by the time he’s done, but Richie figures it’s the polite thing to do. 

When Xavier leaves the room, Richie gets out of bed and puts his pants on. While he’s wiggling into them, his foot goes through one of the the knee rips. Frustrated, he starts to squirm around. During his struggle, his eyes land on Xavier’s phone. An idea sparks somewhere deep in the back of his mind.

Against his better judgement and that conditioned response that makes him feel bad for snooping, he picks up Xavier’s phone. He finds that the phone isn’t password protected and takes this as sign from God. What other force could have aligned such a perfectly awful plan in his midst?

After only a few seconds of internal debate, he glances over at Xavier’s door, subconsciously afraid of being caught, then he pulls up Henry’s gallery and starts sending himself the pictures. When he’s done, he makes sure to delete the evidence before tossing the phone back onto the side table so he can finish getting dressed. He leaves after that. 

He knows that his good idea is probably actually a very bad one.

-

Richie is afraid that the rift caught between him and his father will chew up the parts in their relationship that make them close.

Lying to him really was a bad idea. 

There’s something different in the way he looks at Richie, how he talks to him- almost as if he doesn’t trust him. He’s redeveloped the habit of asking Richie for constant updates on his whereabouts while simultaneously establishing a tighter grip on his freedoms.

Richie had gotten used to floating. He doesn’t like this. 

There’s a certain way the air compresses around Richie and his father when they’re together, like there’d been a vacuum full of oxygen that exploded and now every air molecule inside of it is tightly compacted into one room. Richie feels cramped. He feels cramped and uncomfortable. 

He truly feels it when they go bowling with Richie’s grandmother over the weekend. 

 

Richie’s grandmother, who’s name is Beatrice Tozier, used to be fantastic bowler. Back in her day she was a candied player who was often traded and fought over by a few of the local bowling leagues.

At one point in her bowling career, she had been close to going pro; that was, until her husband’s stroke cost him the mobility of his left hand and some vital brain functions which had never fully returned to him. Up to the day he died, he’d lost the ability to emphasize and feel bad, or sad or anything other than nothing. He’d become even more stoic than he already had been and according to Richie’s father, he’d already been a man made of stone.

Richie never knew his grandfather. Roger Tozier had been turned to ashes by the time Richie was three years old. People usually don’t remember their dead relatives from when they were three years old.

Beatrice enjoys the times when Richie and his father take her out for pizza and a round or two of bowling at Pat’s Bowl Ball, which is the alley she had played most of her major games at. 

Richie always thought the name Pat’s Bowl Ball sounded kind of stupid but the last time they’d been at Pat’s Bowl Ball his grandma told him this: “I spoke to Pat dozens of times back when he still owned the joint and he told me that before the remodel, this place had been a ballroom dance studio. Pat thought of himself as a real clever guy for coming up with a play on words like that.” 

That still didn’t make the name sound any less stupid, but at least there was a reason.

Pat’s Bowl Ball had a run down bar in the back, a few paces just behind the concession stand. After their first round, Richie’s father had told them to go ahead and start another game without him. He’d claimed his shoulder was bothering him. Between plugging their information into the system for round two and listening to his grandmother yammer on about old bowling games, he turned around to see his father heading back to the bar. 

Beatrice didn’t seem to care, she was too emerged in her element to even bat an eye. 

Truthfully, Richie would rather join his dad at the bar than go for another round against his competitive, trash talk spewing grandmother. But that was not something he had a say in. 

“That was the shittiest posture I’ve ever seen, Rich. You know how to throw a ball, take this more seriously.” Beatrice says, not one hint of light-heartedness about it. Richie’s grandmother never acts like this unless she’s bowling. 

Richie doesn’t know how he’s supposed to take a game like bowling seriously. It’s bowling. And his arm is cramping up pretty badly, and he already knows he’s going to lose so he’d rather conserve the energy. It almost seems like a waste.

Beatrice bowls her third consecutive strike and spins around with both fists raised in the air. She lets out a “Whoo!” and rushes over to Richie with her palms up, ready for him to reciprocate. He stands up from his three second break and uses both of his hands to return the mighty high five she shares with him.

He picks his ball up and does his best to straighten out his stance. 

“That’a boy,” Beatrice says. He gets eight pins down and during his second go, he makes a spare. “I wanna see a strike here soon.” 

“I’m trying, grandma.” 

“Not hard enough!” 

Close to the end of their second game, Richie’s dad is still nowhere to be seen and a short, stubby looking man who must be nearing his late twenties, strays from his group of friends a few lanes down to come over and say, 

“Damn lady, you really have an wicked arm.” 

Beatrice smiles the biggest smiled Richie’s seen on her the whole night. 

“Why, thank you." She says. Beatrice loves being praised for her skills probably more than she loves her own grandson. 

“A couple of buddies and I are planning to try out for the Quaker league. Do you mind coming over and showing us how you get the ball to curve like that?” 

Richie is almost sure that his grandma hasn’t been turned on in over seventeen years, but according to the look that crosses over her face, the situation seems to have struck a chord deep in her gears. 

“Of course! Quaker you say? That’s going to be quite the challenge.” 

They’ve already started to walk over to where the man and his friends are camped out when Beatrice spins around, as if she was forgetting something. She looks at Richie and asks, 

“Oh Richie, you don’t mind, do you?” 

“Not at all, grandma.” 

Richie is actually silently thanking the guy, wondering what he’d done to receive this good fortune. 

Richie sits down for a few minutes and messes around on his phone until even that becomes unbearably boring. He comes to the conclusion that he should go looking for his father.

His dad is sitting on a bar stool with his hand wrapped around a bottle of Skol. He’s making conversation with the bartender when Richie approaches him. Richie sits down on the stool next to him. Distracted by the movement, Richie’s dad looks over, and once he realizes that it’s Richie sitting beside him he asks, 

“Where’s your grandmother?” 

“She’s coaching some guys on her ‘wicked’ curve ball.” 

Richie’s father nods his head and finishes off the rest of his beer. 

“That woman would rather bowl than raise her own child,” he says.

Richie does not respond to that, which in turn, leads the conversation into a territory owned by death himself. 

The silence makes Richie sad; there are things he would like to talk about with his father. He actually finds that he misses hearing about his dad’s day of crime fighting or stories about how Sharron’s smooth talking scored them another round of free drinks. Sometimes he misses hearing his father talk to him. 

“Dad,” he takes a deep breath in, “I really am sorry.” 

His dad is silent for a minute and then he grumbles, “I just don’t get it.”

“I didn’t want to upset you.” 

“Well, you’ve failed,” his grip on the bottle of Skol tightens, as does the strings in his voice. 

Richie’s insides start feeling bad. 

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’ll never lie to you again,” His dad doesn’t respond for a long time, so long that Richie doesn’t think he’s going to. 

And just as Richie starts to feel like he’d just poured salt into a healing wound, his father says, 

“It’s okay,” there’s less of an edge than there had been before. “The reason I get so upset, is because of how much I love you. I don’t want you messing up your life. You can’t even imagine how many kids I’ve seen destroy their own lives. Those are the kind of kids that lie to their parents.” 

“I know. I- I won’t disappoint you," Richie says, he can feel his throat closing up. 

His father looks at him, long and hard, then he sighs before putting a hand on the back of Richie’s neck. 

-

Christmas break ends and when the new semester starts, Richie ends up doing something that shoots straight to the top of his, ‘most pathetic shit he’s ever done' list. 

He and Eddie’s art one class ended along with the last semester, meaning art two begins with this one. Richie also has to take gym this semester. This messes with his schedule, making it so that he’s stuck in the art two class that doesn’t have Eddie in it. 

At the end of the first day back, he goes to the office and switches around his schedule so that he’s in the other art two class, the one that does have Eddie in it. 

It meant he had to forfeit his first period study hall for a gym class to even everything out, but he ultimately decides it’s a fair trade. 

He makes himself sick thinking about how lame he is.

The second day back, he strolls into his new art two class and finds Eddie sitting next to a freshman boy who reminds Richie of a dehydrated fish. He walks up to their table and drops his books onto the desk in front of fish boy. When fish boy looks up, Richie jerks his thumb to the right and hardens up his expression. It doesn’t take long for fish boy to figure out that he is no longer welcomed to sit here. He gets up and leaves. Richie takes his seat. 

Eddie’s staring at him. 

“I thought you were in the other class?” 

“They forgot to put gym on my schedule so I had to switch it around," That is a lie, but Richie would sooner die than reveal the real reason that he is sitting in this class room, next to Eddie Kaspbrak. 

“Oh, well good, that kid smells like cat piss.” 

Richie smiles. 

“He looks like a fish.” 

Eddie looks around, searching for fish boy. When he finds him, he stares. Eventually, he nods and says, 

“Yeah, the kind that has the big heads.” Eddie doesn’t stop staring at the guy, and eventually his features contort into something that resembles frustration. He pulls out his phone.

"Here, the flowerhorn fish. It was bothering me not knowing the name.” 

Richie cranes his neck to look down at Eddie’s phone. 

“Yeah, that’s pretty accurate,” he says glancing over at fish boy to reaffirm Eddie’s findings. 

A few seconds of silence sweep by before Richie asks. 

“What are you doing after school today?” 

-

They wait until the library clears out before Richie drags Eddie over to the printing station and hops onto a computer that has a slight resemblance to a block of cement. He logs into his account. Earlier that day he emailed the pictures of drunk Henry Bowers to himself so that he wouldn’t have to waste any time pulling them up.

“How big should we make it?” 

“How should I know?” Eddie shrugs. Eddie’s looking down at his phone, much less interested in Richie’s little escapade than he would appreciate.

It makes Richie think about Quinton. 

He sighs and skims over the size options programed into the cinder block.

He finds that he isn’t satisfied with his choices. He wants it bigger. 

“I need this shit bigger,” he says, “we have to go to office max.” This catches Eddie’s attention. 

“What?” he asks, tilting his head towards the monitor, “16x20 isn’t big enough for you?” 

“Absolutely not, Edward.” 

There’s a scowl on Eddie’s face. 

Richie says, “We gotta hurry before they close.” 

“What did Henry even do to you?” 

-

The next day Richie comes to school in a mood that outshines any dull notion eight hours of class hopping would usually put inside of a teenage boy. 

Officemax had proven to be a reliable resource when a guy is in need of a super sized image of his archemeis performing illegal acts pertaining to the 21st amendment. 

What Eddie and Richie did to Henry could involve witness protective services down the line. 

Close to eleven P.M. the night before, they’d snuck back into the school with a giant poster of Henry, who, in said poster, is drinking from a bottle of Tito’s and standing on top of a coffee table with his pants riding down past his ass. He looks as disheveled as Richie’s ever seen him. 

Richie and Eddie made their way into the locker room where they tacked Henry to the bulletin board hanging in the middle of the room. The poster covered the board almost completely and when they made sure it was centered, thanks to Eddie’s persistent nagging, Richie stood back to admire their efforts. 

Eddie just laughed. 

Then Richie floated over to the coach's desk, which is positioned underneath the window where his old office used to be because apparently, the school board hadn’t found Coach Donagain’s ‘private time’ to be important enough to uphold. The room is now a storage unit.

Richie spent a decent amount of time scavenging around for a piece of paper. Coach Dongagain doesn’t seem to write anything down.

Richie finally found a stack of football shaped sticky notes buried underneath an armload of files in the bottom drawer. He had peeled one off the top and wrote an anonymous tip about Henry’s locker. Then he hunted down Henry’s locker, which had been easy to find due to the ‘captain’ plaque cemented near the top of the locker and slipped a flask underneath a pair of Henry’s smelly gym shorts. He then closed the locker and patted his hands on his jeans as if touching a clothing article belonging to Henry had left remnants of dirt on his skin. 

When he turned around, Eddie was staring at him. 

“Seriously though, what’d he do?” 

Richie didn’t answer him. 

And now Richie sits with the knowledge that he was the one to have gotten Henry Bowers suspended from the basketball team and demoted from captain to teammate. The team has an absolute no alcohol tolerance rule. It’s a bad time for Henry. 

Henry’s presence is so loud that it stirs around the school for the rest of the week. He’s wrapped up in rage that competes with every single smile anyone has to offer him. The anger is solid and firm. Richie can feel it bouncing off the lockers in hallways.

Henry gives Richie one long, hard look and Richie knows there’s no denying it.

-

 

He texts Quinton, 

‘I got Henry Bowers kicked off the basketball team'

‘Did his coach find you two fucking in the locker room?’ 

‘No. I outed him for underage drinking'

‘Lame’ 

‘It’s a better story in person’

Quinton doesn’t respond. 

‘I’m sorry'

‘Are you actually though?’

‘I don’t know, maybe not, but I am sorry that it made you upset'

That is probably the truth. 

He adds, 

‘and I want you to know that Shaun was already a faggot before I had sex with him'

‘I fucking hate you’

‘Do you actually though?’

‘Yes’

‘Okay'

Richie knows that Quinton doesn’t actually fucking hate him. He wouldn’t have responded at all if he did. 

‘Can I come over tomorrow?’ 

‘Do what you want’


	15. Richie

There’s a quiet Saturday evening, about a month after he and Eddie conspired against Henry Bowers, that something very unexpected happens.

Richie is reclined back in his bed when he receives a text from his dad.

‘Staying at Sharron's tonight. Leftover lasagna in the fridge.’

A short sigh of contentment slips from Richie as he stands up and strips his pants off of his body. He throws them across the room, then he goes to the kitchen in his underwear and grabs a bag of tortilla chips. He will not eat the leftover lasagna. It tastes weird. 

When he returns, he hooks his phone into the portable stereo he keeps at his bedside table and turns the volume all the way up. The rhythm of the song has the speaker physically bumping and Richie soon finds himself having to pick it up off the floor. He still does not turn it down. 

The music pauses and his phone dings.

‘Can I come over?’ 

It’s a text from Eddie. 

It isn’t too unusual for Eddie to ask to come over. They’ve been spending a lot of time together. 

Richie tries his best to ignore the fact that he’s completely bent over the idea of Eddie wanting to hang out with him. He tries to remain blind to how bright and electrifying just having Eddie next to him can be.

It’s hard to pretend these things aren’t happening when just the essence of Eddie constantly strikes through him like a bolt of lightning. 

Every encounter they have only adds to Richie’s growing collection of emotions he’s never met before.

‘Yeah’ he responds. 

Richie almost says ‘no,’ only because he does not feel like putting his pants back on. He says ‘yes,’ because he doesn’t actually want to say ‘no’, and having to wear pants is only a minor inconvenience.

Richie does not let himself watch the clock. He does not allow Eddie’s arrival to completely uproot every thought that comes to him because that would be a very lame thing to do.

He crosses the room, picks up his crumpled sweats and slides back into them. After he's fully clothed, he drifts back over to his bed where he continues to listen to music and plays some shitty video game Quinton lent him earlier that week. Video games aren't usually his thing, but it's a good way to pass the time.

When Eddie arrives, he comes through the unlocked back door and wastes no time making it up to Richie’s room. 

When he steps through the door, Richie can immediately tell that something is wrong. 

Richie shuts off his TV and rotates his body so that he can properly face Eddie. Eddie lingers within arms reach of the door frame and he is frowning. There’s something weird about it. 

Eddie shifts his weight from one leg to the other as he opens and closes his mouth. He looks over at Richie and then at the floor, and then at the wall. 

Richie doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eddie look so conflicted. 

Eddie then walks over to the dresser where he bounces on his toes for half a second. Then he stalks over to Richie’s closet for another half-second before he’s back over at the dresser. 

Eddie is pacing and looking completely unhinged. Richie is confused. 

“Wh-” Richie begins to say. He stops when Eddie raises his hand in the air, a gesture that is universally used to silence people. It is effective.

Eddie still doesn’t say anything. He goes from the dresser, back over to the closest and then over to the dresser again. He does this a few times, and his expression shifts around so much that Richie doesn’t have any idea of what he is thinking about. 

There comes a point in time where he stops pacing, breathes in and out and then squares himself directly in front of Richie. He says, 

“Richie, I want you to take your pants off.” 

Richie blinks at him. 

“We’re going to have sex," Eddie says solidly.

Richie blinks again and stares up into Eddie’s face. 

He does not know what he is looking for when he looks into Eddie’s eyes, but it’s not at all what he finds. 

Richie is taken aback by the determination hanging out in every corner of Eddie’s face.

His heart starts to beat harder. 

When Richie remains silent, when he doesn’t move an inch, Eddie sighs and mumbles, 

“We don’t have to.”

“No-” Richie blurts almost immediately. He reaches forward and catches Eddie by the wrist just as he’s about to take a step back. “No,” Richie repeats. He is too overrun by hormones to feel embarrassed by his eagerness, “I want to.”

Eddie’s expression changes again and again, and Richie still hasn’t figured out how to read the memos Eddie’s face lays out for him. He quickly learns that he is especially inexperienced when it comes to a time like this.

Eddie pulls his wrist away from Richie’s grasp only to lift his shirt over his head and drop his pants down to his ankles. He stands there in front of Richie, in his boxers, and kicks at his jeans.

His boxers are green with blue strips. 

Richie stares at him. 

He thinks he may die. 

Eddie takes a step forward, and then another, and soon he’s close enough to Richie to where Richie's chin almost pushes into his chest. Richie has to crane his head back so that he’s able to keep his eyes on Eddie’s face. 

Then Eddie sits down on his lap.

And this is probably what causes Richie to absolutely lose it.

Richie feels a wave of realization knock him into gear and it’s fair game after that. 

He abruptly slips his arms around Eddie's backside and pulls him in close. He presses his cheek into the skin just above Eddie’s sternum and holds Eddie taut against his body. While this is happening, Eddie slides his arms over Richie’s shoulders and links his fingers together where Richie’s shoulder blades meet.

It occurs to Richie that Eddie may be able to feel his heartbeat and the fucked up way it’s ramming itself against his ribcage. But it also occurs to him that Eddie’s on top of him right now and shit like that just doesn’t fucking matter. 

In one swift movement, Richie flips them so that he’s got Eddie pit down on the bed underneath him. Eddie stares up at him. 

“Your pants are still on." He says. Richie doesn’t say anything.

Right above the curve of Eddie’s shoulders, Richie presses his palms into the mess of sheets to better prop himself up. He shifts most of his weight to one hand and uses the other to touch the skin on Eddie’s neck. It’s warm. Eddie is warm. 

Eddie continues to stare up at him.

Richie leans in, sliding himself into all the angles that Eddie’s body leaves open. He puts his mouth where Eddie’s shoulder starts to sloop and he stays like that for a while. 

He is overwhelmed. 

It dawns on Richie right then. How close they are. What Eddie is asking from him. How much Richie’s willing to give him. Richie thinks in this very moment, that he would give him anything. 

Richie runs a hand down the bare skin on Eddie’s side, just to feel him out, just to understand the way he curves. It’s a part of Eddie he’s never known before and learning such simple lines has never been so enticing. 

He breathes out against Eddie’s neck as his fingers brush against the fabric of Eddie’s blue and green boxers. His hand goes still, as does the rest of his body as he inevitably melts into Eddie. 

Richie is barely able to keep up with the delirium overriding the logical parts of his brain. Everything is green, all signs are go and Richie’s choking on his own self restraint. 

“Are you going to fuck me?” Eddie finally asks, his voice is quiet. 

“Yeah.”

-

It was an unforgettable Saturday, and it had Richie completely disarmed.

If it wasn’t for Eddie doing and saying things under his own control, Richie definitely would have been under the impression that he’d gotten trapped in a fantasy world where dreams really do come true. 

Having sex with Eddie wasn’t anything like he’d imagined. 

For as much as he thought about it, pictured it, jerked off to it, he realizes he had never allowed himself the actuality of it.

He hadn’t anticipated the feeling of Eddie’s skin on his own, or the way Eddie’s lips would fit around his name, or how Richie would be clung to and held and needed. 

He hadn’t thought about how any of those things would make him feel.

Eddie had laid next to him in his bed afterwards, and their bodies were close but they weren’t touching. 

They didn’t talk very much so it was easy for Richie to overthink the few conversations they did manage to have. Those conversations had been somewhat normal, he guesses. Maybe there were a couple of missed beats, maybe there were a few words out of place and maybe there were some breaks of silence that had stretched on to long.

Maybe something had changed.

When Eddie finally rose to dress himself, Richie had looked directly into his face and found a lot of voids that he wasn't sure how to see past. 

Eddie had returned Richie’s gaze and he had said, 

“Thanks.” 

Richie wasn’t really sure why he was being thanked or why he responded with,

"Yeah.”

But looking back now, Richie probably should have kept it in his pants. 

He doesn’t have the mental flexibility to do something like that with someone like Eddie. Someone who he really does care about. 

Sex has never been like that for him before. 

But it’s close to impossible to be disappointed with himself for it. How can he be? It’s Eddie. He thinks about Eddie all the time, thinks about having sex with Eddie all the time. 

On Monday, after Eddie had avoided looking at him in english and part way through art, Richie couldn’t help but to maul over the memory of fucking him.

Everytime he steals a glance in Eddie’s direction, it’s followed by the remembrance of what Eddie looks like when he’s having sex. 

Here is a list of some of the things that Richie thinks about while sitting next to Eddie in their art two class: Eddie’s half lidded eyes, Eddie’s exposed neck, the way Eddie’s chest arched into his, the way Eddie’s fingers had dug into his shoulders, the small noises that came from the back of Eddie’s throat, the warmth fanned out on Richie’s cheek as Eddie exhaled out. 

Richie learns that all of those things make him into a very weak person.

Richie shifts around in his seat. He needs to stop. His lower half is getting too excited. 

Eddie doesn’t say anything to him for the whole period other than ‘hi’ and a ‘did you get your's finished?’ 

In light of being avoided, Richie has already come to the conclusion that Eddie regrets being with him.

To say Richie’s confused would be a drastic understatement.

There are so many possibilities left unanswered that could've led to their encounter. Why had Eddie been so frustrated? So hesitant? Why do it in the first place?

Richie has a lot of question, and Eddie’s not looking like he wants to talk about it. 

-

Rae is not a very insightful person. Richie doesn’t ever strain to take his advice with a careful ear, with that being said, it’s not like he doesn’t listen to it. 

“I had sex the other day.” Richie starts with. Rae picks his gaze up from restock list he’d been working on all afternoon. 

“Okay?” Rae looks confused. 

“With someone I like.”

Rae still looks confused. “Have you never had a girlfriend before, Richie?” 

“No.” 

“Huh? Weird. Well girls usually don’t like to sleep with you unless they have feelings for you,” Rae explains, “Unless they’re fucked up. Was she fucked up?”

“No.” Richie answers. He does not want to tell Rae that Eddie is a boy. Rae is the type of guy that would probably think that’s disgusting. 

“Then you should have no problem making her your girlfriend.” 

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy," Richie’s shoulders start to slump. “I have a feeling they slept with me for a bad reason.” 

That bad reason has been weighing on Richie all week long. He doesn’t get why Eddie would sleep with him out of the blue and then pretend like it didn’t happen. It makes absolutely zero sense, and now he’s being avoided like he’s got some kind of bionic, incurable disease that causes everyone around him to choke on his poisoned atmosphere. 

The tension between them has said a lot more than Eddie has, and unfortunately Richie’s not very good analyzing the unspoken. He’s doing the best with what he’s got. 

“What’s that mean?” 

“I don’t know. They aren’t talking to me now.” 

“Look Richie, we’re the guys who aren’t too good at reading in between the lines. I’m sure she is talking, you just got to listen harder.” 

Richie doesn’t really know what that’s supposed to mean. 

The next time he’s sitting next to Eddie, he tries to listen harder.

He still doesn’t hear anything. Although, he does catch Eddie looking over at him more than once. 

It makes his stomach stir. 

He attempts to grab Eddie’s gaze and hold it for longer than a few seconds, but Eddie’s having a hard time keeping it steady and Richie isn’t very abrupt. 

By the time class is over, Richie doesn’t feel as if he’s made much progress. That is, until Eddie grips the hem of his tee shirt and pulls him back just as he’s about to walk out of the room. 

“Can we talk?” Eddie asks.

“Y-yeah.” Richie stutters. Eddie’s caught him off guard, but the swell of relief that bubbles just from hearing Eddie talk to him is strong enough to override any surprise. He turns around to face Eddie as the room empties and Mrs. Venture leaves to go to the bathroom. 

“I know things have been a little awkward since- you know- but I don’t want them to be.” Eddie starts. Richie’s heart starts to pound. “It- listen- it shouldn’t have happened. I was pissed off at someone and I took advantage of you so I’m sorry- but Richie- I really do like being your friend.” 

Richie thinks his insides may have crumbled all the way down into his shoes.

“Yeah," is all he can say. 

“You get it, right?” Eddie is embodying the term calm, cool and collected while Richie feels as if someone has just pushed him into a glacier. 

“Ye-” Richie can’t even finish it. 

He gets it, he does, but the moment hits him a little differently and he realizes that if he stays quiet, to swallow how he really feels, this ‘thing’ between them will indefinitely be over and that’s almost unbearable to think about.

He isn’t the kind of person to speak up, especially when no one’s asked him too, but there are times when listening to what everyone else has to say and being okay with it just isn’t going to work for him. This is one of those times. He isn’t okay with it. 

Eddie is staring at him. 

“Eddie.” Richie says. Eddie keeps on watching him. The coolness in his expression seems to have soaked up a bit of warmth after hearing his name fall from Richie’s mouth in such a way.

"I want it to happen again.” 

Eddie looks as if he’d just been plucked from the security of his own private island and thrown to the sharks. 

“I have a boyfriend," Eddie says blatantly. 

“Didn’t stop you before.” 

Eddie stares at him. 

Richie stares back. 

-

It ends up happening again.

-

 

During gym a couple weeks later, Richie almost fights Victor Criss over a poorly supervised volleyball game.

Richie is occupying the middle blocker position, when their setter, a guy called Guy, tosses him a fast one. 

There’s not a lot of room to think, and Richie is taken over by his instincts as they carry him through the air and bring his hand down for him. Everything happens very quickly and there isn’t much leanence in his aim. He sends the ball directly into Victor Criss’s pin shaped head. 

The ball hits Victor so hard he ends up on the floor with his face in his hands and a bit of blood oozing from the spaces between his fingers. Richie watches from the other side of the net, not really sure if he should be saying sorry or grabbing the coach. 

He doesn’t have the chance to do either of those things because after a couple seconds, Victor gazes up at him with a pointed glare. Richie thinks about how the blood streaming down his face, past his bottom lip and onto his chin really adds to the indigident expression he’s going for.

“You did that on purpose!” Victor erupts. This makes the girl who had crouched down to see if he was alright straighten up and step back almost instantly. Richie doesn’t say anything. He only blinks. 

This seems to piss Victor off a bit more. 

“Piece of shit.” Victor says as he scrambles to his feet, sneakers squeaking and his nose dripping. He lunges towards the net and ducks under its lining. He pulls a fist back just below his ear and grunts as he attempts lead his knuckles into Richie’s nose. 

To Richie, it’s obvious that Victor is a little disoriented with how he’s coming at him, all of center and squinty eyed. This would make for an unfair fight and although Richie nor Victor aren’t the kind of guys to care about disadvantages, Richie would rather not crush Victor like a coke can under his shoe. His only means of retaliation are putting his hands up so that he’s able to shove Victor back by the chest before his fist can come anywhere close to Richie’s face. 

When Victor tries again, Richie grabs him by the wrist and pushes him back even harder than before. 

“Chill dude, it was an accident." Richie says and then for some odd reason he thinks about Savannah and how she’d described what she did with Richie as an ‘accident.’ How blown the look on Victor’s face had been when she said it.

He wonders if Victor is thinking about Savannah too.

A tall boy called Hank, who had been standing near by, grabs at the back of Victor’s shirt in attempt to reel him back. Richie is thankful for Hank. 

Eventually the silence and stillness that settles across the gymnasium is a clear notification that something isn’t right. Coach Donagin makes his way over just in time to see Victor play up a fake surrender just so he can break out of Hank's grip to nail Richie in the hollow of his cheekbone. Victor’s hit is pretty solid and Richie’s left cheek takes the blow. He can tell from the dull ache that settles after the pain subsides, that he can look forward to a nice dark bruise in the morning. 

“What the hell are you boys doing?” Coach Donagin explodes. He stares at the two of them long enough to see that neither one of them is standing up straight. “Office, now.” 

The creases in Richie’s expression turn down. 

-

Richie’s sat in the front office. 

He’s been slumped down into one of those uncomfortable stiff chairs with confusing geometric patterns for the better part of an hour. And he’s only becoming increasingly restless. Not only are both of his legs asleep, but he’s starting to fear that the lack of activity is going to make his body switch over into hibernate mode. 

Richie stomps both of his feet into the floor until the pins and needles fade. He makes sure to pay no attention to the secretary who is glaring at him from behind her desk. From experience, he’s learned that Mrs. McIntyre is a bitch.

There’s the faint sound of a door opening but his eyes remain cast downward. Then he hears, 

“You can go to grab breakfast.” 

Richie peers up to find Eddie behind the office desk, looking down at Mrs. McIntyre. She tilts her head to look back at him and smiles. It’s the warmest expression Richie’s ever seen on her face.

“Thanks dear." She says before rising from her seat. She makes sure to ignore Richie’s hardened stare as she leaves the room. 

When she’s gone, Richie’s attention goes right back to Eddie, who’s already watching him. 

“The fuck did you do?” Eddie asks. 

“I was attacked,” Richie says, raising a hand and touching his fingertips to his swollen cheek, “I am only here under unjust circumstances.” 

“Yeah okay." Eddie almost rolls his eyes. He sits down in the secretary’s seat. 

“I didn’t know you were an office aid," Richie says after a minute. 

“I just started this semester.” 

Richie nods.

“How does it feel to be the office bitch?” 

“It’s great,” Eddie says, glowering at him, “Suzanne really knows how to pleasure me.” 

“Are you trying to insult me?” Richie asks. 

Eddie only shrugs. 

They’ve been screwing on occasion. Occasion meaning they’ve screwed two other times since that first initial time in Richie’s bedroom. And Richie has always liked sex, obviously, but he never knew it could be like this. He never knew it was possible to feel like this. 

His ‘normal thoughts’ to ‘Eddie thoughts’ ratio was shit before; but now, it’s completely busted.

And he isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with all this intensity that’s been wrecking around inside him. That shit has him feeling like he’s seconds away from exploding at all times. 

He knows these feelings directly correlate with the helpless infatuation he's had with Eddie for the majority of his life. He’s not sure why it’s like this or why Eddie’s always made him feel less than normal. That’s just how it is, how it’s always been. And now, it’s heightened, times a thousand. 

Truely, Richie has no idea how Eddie feels about him. He isn’t sure if Eddie’s just having a good time or if there’s something else layered under all the back and forth banter they’ve always shared. Richie doesn’t even know if Eddie still has a boyfriend.

Richie stares at Eddie. He tries to look past the mystery that surrounds Eddie but all Richie sees is a boy hunching over a desk, writing something down inside of his notebook. 

When Eddie glances up, he catches Richie’s gaze. 

“Is there something on my face?” he asks jokingly. Richie shakes his head slowly and continues to stare at him with a firmness in his face that makes Eddie’s cheeks go warm and his eyes shyly shift downward. Richie’s chest squeezes as if it’s working against him.

A couple beats later, Richie stands up. Eddie’s attention flees from his notebook and over to Richie again.

Richie’s legs feel weak beneath him, but that doesn’t stop him from striding over to Eddie in these slow smooth movements that have Eddie’s eyes widening with every step. The closer he gets, the higher Eddie’s head tilts, making sure he’s maintaining Richie’s eye contact. 

Richie stops once his hips press into the edge of the desk. They stare at each other. 

Richie reaches forward and takes Eddie’s jaw into his hand. He finds that the size of Eddie’s face pales in comparison to the size of his hand. That realization alone is almost enough to give him a heart attack. 

Richie’s fingers gently push into the hollow part of Eddie’s throat, his thumb resting just below the corner of his mouth. Richie can feel him swallow and without breaking eye contact, he bends and presses their lips together. 

They’ve never kissed before. 

Eddie tastes warm and familiar, as if Richie’s known the feel of him his entire life. But knowing doesn’t seem to be enough. Richie needs to taste him, touch him, devour him. He pulls Eddie closer and makes sure Eddie knows exactly what he’s looking for. He wants to drown Eddie in the feeling of him as much as he drowns in Eddie.

Waves of want bulldozer over Richie and he has no other option but to be crushed by them. All of a sudden he’s feeling famished, as if he hasn’t had a crumb of food for days. 

Richie wonders if Eddie’s ever kissed anyone so fervently before. He knows he hasn’t. 

All that warm sticky heat leaves once Eddie separates himself and retreats back a couple inches. He stares up at Richie with round eyes, as if Richie had just stripped him naked.

“Why did you do that?” Eddie asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I wanted to," Richie replies flatly. Being so close, he doesn't waste a second drinking in every detail on Eddie's face, “You didn't like it?”

“It- it wasn’t the worst thing- I guess,” Eddie stutters, lifting his shoulders into small shakey shrug and rolling his gaze down towards the floor and then back up again.

Richie begins to wonder how well his own exterior is holding up. He cannot tell, he's too distracted by the collapse of his insides.

He goes to pull Eddie in again but he is stopped when Eddie’s fingers wrap around his wrist. Eddie detaches Richie's hand from his face and says, “Not here.” As if to emphasize his point, he glances towards the door. 

Despite the feeling of disappointment swelling in his chest, Richie nods. He lets himself do one more sweep of Eddie's face before stepping away and heading back over his seat.

Once Richie's seated, his eyes make it back over to Eddie. 

He finds that he is already being stared at.

-

Richie’s father sits him down and starts to say, “Richie-” but before he can get anything else out, Richie jumps in. 

“Listen- I know that I’ve broken your trust- but believe me dad, I didn’t hit him, and I never had any intentions to fight him. That guy has always had it out for me- it was an accident, that ball hit him by accident, I didn’t even see him- he was just there and bam- next thing I know he’s trying to punch me in the face-” 

“Richie,” his father says firmer than before. Richie stops rambling and swallows. He’s afraid to meet his father’s gaze. “The school called me and told there had been a situation, but that you’re not in trouble.” 

Richie knows he’s not in trouble, but the fact that the school had involved his father at all was enough to make him worry.

“Yeah- I’m not but I just thought-” Richie cuts himself off, not really sure where he was headed. 

“Calm down Richie. I get it, some things can’t be helped.” 

Richie’s nerves settle back into place and he sinks down into the sofa. 

“Sorry,” he says automatically. 

His father stares at him, the way his features sit makes it look like he’s thinking. 

“Why does that boy have it out for you?”

Richie goes to scratch the back of his neck. He’s unsure of what his father’s reaction would be upon finding out that Richie’s a whore.

“I um- me and his girlfriend had a thing a while back.” 

His father looks a little surprised. Richie never talks about this kind of stuff with him. 

“I didn’t know you were hooking up with girls.” 

Richie laughs nervously, “Really? I mean- weren’t you- at this age?” 

His dad looks like he’s thinking again. He leans back into the deeper part of his recliner, and a few seconds later he sighs and says, “Yeah, I guess I was.” And then after a minute, “This girl... was it anything serious?”

There’s a seam on the arm of the sofa that protrudes out slightly, and Richie starts to anxiously trace it with his finger tips. “Um- no, nothing like that- she was just bored with him- I think.” Richie says awkwardly. His dad keeps his eyes on him, like he’s watching for something. 

“Huh, have you hooked up with a lot of girls?” 

“Oh- um, not that many.” Richie's voice skips when he speaks, his weird phrasing causes a teasing smile to spread across his dad’s face. 

“Relax Richie, I’m just curious. You never talk about this kind of stuff.” 

“Should I?” 

His dad laughs, “I don’t know. Do you want to?” 

Richie slightly digs his nails into the fabric of the sofa. He softly replies, "Not really." His dad nods. 

“Okay we don’t have to, but just know, I don’t care that you’re messing around, you’re a seventeen year old boy. It can’t be helped,” his dad says. “That being said, if you knock someone up- I will bust your head open.” He says it lightly, as if he were kidding, but Richie knows that he is not kidding. 

“Trust me, I won’t.”


	16. Richie

Miranda Winger is a good artist. Richie can’t deny that the girl has talent, nor will he try to. Miranda’s lines are always clean and her ideas are always coherent. 

But Miranda is self-conscious.

And Miranda does a lot of talking to cover up the fact that she is self-conscious.

Miranda has mastered the art of boasting; pair that with her expertise of gauging in compliments, and you’ve got yourself someone who oozes desperation.

Richie gets it, he does, but that doesn’t make her any less annoying.

Miranda is a teacher aid for his art two class and because he and Eddie are the only two seniors in the entire class, she’s always trying to make conversation with them. Richie wouldn’t mind it so much if she didn’t talk to him like he’s her competition.

“That looks pretty cool." Miranda suddenly says over his shoulder. He flinches under the pressure of her voice and the action pulls a laugh from the back of Miranda’s throat.

Richie’s been doodling all over the back of an assignment sheet for the past twenty minutes. He’s well aware that his first priority should be the actual assignment instead of the dark lines hijacking his pen, but he can’t be bothered. 

In an unconscious effort to shield his poorly structured scribbles, he puts his arms over his desk. 

“Why are you hiding it?” she asks before she reaches down and grabs at his sleeve in an attempt to uncover his paper. He doesn’t budge and when she realizes that he’s not going to, she pulls back. 

“It’s nothing,” he says, peering up at her.

“It looked cool,” she says, “I just wanted to see.” 

He turns forward and drops his head into the fold of his arms. He keeps still for a little while. Miranda pokes around him until eventually she walks away with a defeated huff a few minutes later.

After she leaves, he moves to turn his face in the other direction so that he can look at Eddie. He silently watches Eddie struggle to draw a chair. It’s cute.

He’s half asleep when Mrs. Venture approaches their desk and taps him on the shoulder. He jerks upright and whips his head from side to side until he finds Mrs. Venture's soft eyes gazing down at him. She’s smiling. 

“Oh- I was just taking a break.” 

“You’re fine, I’m not worried about your work ethic,” she says, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m planning on submitting your canvas piece from last semester to the Jannet Museum art show.” 

Richie blinks at her. 

“Are you okay with that?” she asks, her smile dimming in his silence. 

“Sure,” he responds bleakly, lifting a hand up to scratch his cheek. 

“Great,” she says, her initial eagerness dying in the wake of his anti-climatic reaction. “It’s the most prestigious show this school is allowed to participate in, and I instantly thought your piece would be a great fit. It’s very eye catching.” 

“Thank you." He says. His voice is monotone, but he does try give her a tight smile. 

She puts some papers down in front of him. 

“This is all the information you need to know if you’d like to go see it. ” 

He nods, staring down at the papers on his desk. “Okay.” 

She walks away after that, and Richie strains to ignore the quickening of his pulse. 

He pushes the papers away.

“We should go check it out.” Eddie says. Richie slides his attention over and stares at him. Eddie’s smile is gentle as he reaches over and gathers the rejected papers from Richie’s side of the desk.

“Not interested.” Richie says. He slumps back down onto the desk. 

“What? Why?”

Richie lowers his head into his arms again and shrugs his shoulders in a big, sluggish way. He closes his eyes but still senses Eddie’s attention on him. A few seconds later, Eddie asks,

“Why can’t you just come to terms with the fact that you’re an artist?” 

“Because I’m not.” Richie’s voice hardens up a bit. He opens his eyes and instantly finds Eddie’s. 

“But you are.” 

“Just because I can draw decently doesn’t mean I’m a fucking artist. It doesn’t mean anything.” Richie ends up sounding a lot more harsher than he had intended. It surprises them both. 

Eddie doesn’t say anything for a while, he only stares down at Richie with shifting features that don’t really make any sense. Eventually he says, “Sorry.” 

“No- I didn’t mean to be a dick.” Richie says. Be’s compelled to reach out and touch Eddie’s arm, his thigh or his face.

He doesn’t though. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. 

-

 

“Did you know that Beverly also messed around with Ben?!” Quinton half shouts as he throws himself into the booth across from Richie. He brings a fist down onto the table in attempts to express his bewilderment. The water in Richie’s glass ripples. 

Richie runs a hand through his hair, his curls grabbing at his fingers and trying to keep them there. “I guess I did know that.”

It was a year before he’d even met Quinton and only a short time after Sharron and his father started seeing each other. Richie hadn’t known Beverly very well but you would have needed to be in a coma to not to know about the three way car crash that happened between Beverly, Ben and Bill. 

The incident was fatal and Bill and Ben’s friendship suffered significant injuries. Unfortunately, in the end, it could not be salvaged. 

“What are the fucking odds?” Quinton says, he reaches over to slide Richie’s water glass in front of him. 

Richie shrugs, “I mean Bev’s been with a lot of dudes.” 

Quinton pauses to peer up at him with his mouth still around the straw. “Thanks for reminding me.” 

“You walked right into that one.” 

“Fuck off.” Quinton pushes the glass back into Richie’s vicinity. Their waitress, who goes by Jane, comes over to take their orders but Quinton hasn’t even opened the menu. They ask for a few more minutes. 

“Ben always had a thing for Beverly, said she was friends with Eddie and this other guy Bill. When he found out she was also fucking around with Bill too it messed up their friendship, big time.” 

“I know the story.” 

“You never told me.” 

Richie shrugs like he doesn’t think it’s a big deal. It’s not something that ever came to mind.

“There wasn’t a need to.” 

Quinton doesn’t have anything to say to that. Their waitress comes back and they both order burgers. After Jane walks away, their conversation hits a wall and cascades into silence. Richie isn’t sure what they’re supposed to talk about after starting with something like that. 

“So...Ben tells me you’ve been hanging out with Eddie quite a bit," Quinton eventually says, gazing up at him. There’s something in his expression that causes Richie’s shoulders to go tense. He supposes this is a subject he should have expected to talk about at some point. “He told me that you used to bully him -- and not just the teasing kind.” 

Richie stares at him for a solid ten seconds before sighing and looking down into his lap. He knits his fingers together.

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Ben doesn’t like you very much.” 

“Okay.” 

“He thinks Eddie shouldn’t have befriended you.” 

“That’s fine.” Richie says plainly. Quinton squints at him.

“He thinks you guys are messing around.” 

Richie’s throat tightens and he suddenly feels as if Quinton’s pointing a bright yellow light on him and he’s under investigation. He doesn’t say anything. 

“Well?” Quinton presses, “Are you?”

Richie has trouble finding a way out of the question. Generally a situation like this calls for a lie, but he has learned from past mistakes that lying is a tiring game. He still mauls over his options. 

“Yeah,” he finally admits. 

Quinton leans back and watches him. 

“Ben thinks you have some crazy obsession with him.” 

“It’s not an obsession-” Richie says harshly, “I just- like him.” 

“You like him?” 

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“I’ve never heard you say you like anything.” 

“There’s not a whole lot on this Earth for me to like.” 

“You have such a terrible perspective.”

Richie shrugs. 

“What about him do you like?”

“I don’t- I don’t really know… everything, I guess.” 

“Everything?” 

“Yes, do you need a fucking list?” 

“A list would be great.” 

Richie scoffs, “Are you done? I’m tired of talking about this sissy shit.”

“Talking about your feelings is not a bad thing, Richie.” 

“I know it isn’t," Richie says, sounding too defensive, “but how am I supposed to talk about this if I don’t know what the fuck is going on?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Richie.” Quinton says his name so sternly it forces Richie to look up at him. He finds that Quinton is watching him closely. Quinton’s eyes are squinted into slits, his lips are pursed and his chest is brought forward so his arms are able to rest on top of the table in front of them. Richie breathes quickly out of his nose and crosses his arms. He breaks their short lived eye contact to stare down at a piece of dirt sticking to the side of the table. 

“I just don’t know,” Richie says, not wanting this conversation to go any farther than it already has. 

“You’re going to explode one day,” Quinton says before he sighs and slouches against the back of his booth. “You’re going burst into flames and I will be there, waiting, with a stick and a bag of marshmallows.” 

“Make sure you bring chocolate.” 

“You-” 

“And some graham crackers.” 

-

 

Richie is weak. 

He knows that he is weak because when Eddie comes up to him about a week later and puts a hand on his arm while gazing up at him with an expression so angelic it makes Richie’s insides evaporate, he completely melts onto the floor beneath them. 

“I was thinking about going to that art show on Saturday,” he says in a way that’s so sweet it’s like he’s trying to disguise his true intentions. “If you really don’t want to go, I can ask someone else to come with me.” He blinks up at Richie and it’s as if Richie is completely caught in a haze of admiration. The way Eddie is staring up at him, touching him, asking Richie to pay respects to his own art work.

“I’ll go,” he says and the satisfaction that crosses over Eddie’s features is loud enough to make anyone sick with loss… but not Richie, he does not care. 

Eddie runs his hand up and down Richie’s upper arm and smiles. 

-

It’s Saturday and Richie’s never been to an art museum before. 

The last time Eddie went to an art museum was when he was in the second grade. He was seven years old. Seven year olds don’t care enough to absorb anything so Richie would say that it’s a new experience for the both of them. 

They don’t have to pay admission because as it turns out, Eddie kept the flyer Mrs. Venture had left for Richie. It's a flyer that says 'Ticket' across the top in blocky bold font. Eddie always seems to be thinking ahead. 

After they get through the front lobby and past the office desk, Eddie instantly wanders over to a display of wire sculptures. He halts once he’s standing in front of the first one. It’s shaped like a face with the utmost dreary expression Richie’s ever seen. It’s black lead mouth is turned downward and it’s eyebrows are pulled together. It’s a whole bunch of sad looking lines. 

Eddie stares at it. “This one looks like you,” he says, pointing to the sad face made of metal. Richie’s attention slides over it’s curves and lands on a painting hung up behind it. 

“Well that one looks like you." Richie retalites, raising his arm to poke a finger at the oil painting he’s referring to. It’s a portrait of a fat, bald man wearing a little black hat. He’s holding a rosary and it looks like there’s a tablecloth draped across his round shoulders. 

Eddie smiles. 

From there, they migrate over to historical art gallery. They find many paintings of old white men in wigs standing around with serious expressions on their faces and long rifles strapped to their backs. Richie isn’t very interested in any of it. He watches Eddie most of the time. 

Eddie takes his time combing through the pieces he likes. He reads a few summaries, and occasionally he’ll make a comment. Richie only follows him. He thinks he likes the egyption art because some of it makes him laugh.

When they move into the next room, it’s full of a bunch of paintings that seem to lack ideas. There’s lots of color and lots of lines. 

Richie tries to play off his interest by attempting to look extra uninterested. 

“These are just so cool," Eddie says, mesmerized by a painting of some squares. 

“Anyone could do that,” Richie replies lowly. 

“I couldn’t.” 

Richie crosses his arms over his chest and ignores the pounding between his ribs, how harsh it is, how full it feels. He glances around the room and finds that it’s becoming increasingly harder to be still. Being in this room is overwhelming. He looks at the floor. 

“You look like you’re going to throw up.” Eddie says, coming towards him. Richie lifts his head a bit. 

“I’m fine." He insists. Eddie doesn’t say anything else. 

When they finally step into the student exhibit, Eddie immediately leaves his side to scour the room in search of Richie’s painting. 

Richie’s heart starts to pound. 

Eddie disappears around the makeshift wall dividing the room into two, and Richie trails along behind him. They find Richie’s canvas hung up on the other side. 

Eddie stands there, staring up at it for the longest time. Richie only watches him. 

“It’s amazing.” Eddie says. Richie doesn’t respond. He feels a strange cold settle down into him, there’s no excitement, no pride; only an overwhelming amount of nothing. And it’s frigid. 

Richie doesn’t know why he feels like this. 

He hadn’t realized that Eddie turned around to look at him. He’d been subconsciously caught up in the lines of his own painting.

Richie steps forward and Eddie has to tilt his head up to maintain eye contact. Richie reaches out and takes Eddie’s hand. He just holds it. 

“You’re shaking,” Eddie murmurs, the downward creases in his face standing behind the concern in his voice.

“It’s fine.” Richie says. Eddie squeezes his hand and steps into the open space next to him so he can continue to stare. 

“I think it looks wonderful.” Eddie says it so softly that it makes Richie feel cold. He breathes out a ragged breath and holds his tongue between his teeth. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

-

After they’re back in the car, Richie says, 

“We can go back to mine if you want,” and then he’s scared he sounds too eager so he quickly adds, “or I can take you home- whatever you want to do.” 

Eddie sits there quietly while Richie starts up the truck. Just as it coughs to life, Eddie responds by casually brushing his fingers against Richie’s hand and saying,

“We can go to your's.”

They go to Richies. 

By the time they get inside, the sun is already setting and Richie’s feeling more tired than usual. They chill out in the living room for the first few hours after their arrival. The T.V. is on but it’s more background noise than anything, because at the moment, they’re having a very serious discussion. 

“Kevin has to be the least sexiest name on planet Earth,” Richie says, his features twisting up.

“Hey, I talked to a guy named Kevin before,” Eddie intervenes. 

“Okay but imagine having to moan the name Kevin.” 

“Like Richie’s any better.” 

“Um yeah it is. If you shorten it to Rich then you’re reminded of money and who doesn’t find money sexy?”

“That’s a reach,” Eddie says before leaning deeper into the sofa. He’s close to Richie but they aren’t touching. It’s making Richie antsy. “Besides, everyone knows Wolfgang is the absolute worst name in the english language.” 

Richie remains quiet for a second. “Okay,” he admits, “You got me there.” 

Something on the T.V. catches Eddie’s attention, the conversation fades out and the sound of the T.V fills the emptiness. Now all Richie can think about is Eddie moaning his name. Not to mention that sitting this close to Eddie without any contact at all may as well be like starving to death while a feast is right in front of you. He shuffles over so that their thighs are touching. 

Richie is confused about so much in his life, and the overall concept of Eddie definitely has to make it into his top five reasons as to why he can’t sleep at night. 

He doesn’t understand him, he doesn't understand what he’s thinking about when their together. Or when they’re having sex. Richie often wonders if sex is nothing more than sex to Eddie.

He puts his arm on the back of the sofa, just behind Eddie’s head. To Richie’s surprise, Eddie nuzzles closer into his side. He ends up with part of his cheek resting on Richie’s shoulder and the majority of the fingers on his right hand sprawled out at the very top of Richie’s thigh. 

Richie fucking dies. 

Three minutes later, Richie is on top of him and they’re making out. 

It’s not enough and Richie isn’t close enough. He lowers himself until their chests are pressed together and there’s absolutely no more room between them. Eventually he separates their mouths so he can kiss Eddie’s jaw, his neck, his cheek. Richie’s hands are wandering and Eddie’s starting to tremble underneath him. 

“Richie,” Eddie whimpers and it’s the beginning of Richie’s journey becoming undone. 

That is until he hears the garage door opening. 

Instantly, he flings himself off of Eddie and topples down onto the floor, landing with a thud. He wastes no time picking himself up and adjusting the collar of his shirt and the tightness of his belt. Eddie is still laying on his back, looking up at him, confused. 

“My dad- my dad’s here,” Richie stutters, running a hand through his hair. 

“Oh.” Eddie says, sitting up. He blinks, still looking semi dazed. Quickly, Richie bends down and ruffles Eddie’s hair in attempts to smooth it out. He steps away once he hears the door open. 

“Rich?” his father calls from the hallway. Richie can hear him kicking his shoes off and tossing his keys onto the stand in the entryway. 

“In here.” Richie calls out. He can still feel Eddie’s eyes lingering on him and when Richie looks, Eddie’s watching him with a strange expression on his face. 

When Richie’s father enters the living room, he looks between the two of them. 

“I didn’t know you were having a friend over,” he says, his voice neutral, his eyes finding his son's. 

“Sorry I didn’t call." Richie apologizes. His dad waves a hand of dismissal at him. 

“It’s fine." He says before going over to stand next to Richie. Eddie finally pops up to his feet. 

“Hi,” Eddie says, “I’m Eddie.” 

"Went” Richie’s dad says, sticking out his hand. Eddie looks down at his outstretched hand for a second longer than an adult usually would before he takes it. They shake twice before their arms drop to their sides. 

“We’re just going to go up to my room.” Richie squeaks. He’s already walking towards the staircase before he’s even finished talking, and Eddie’s on his heels. 

His father doesn’t say anything and Richie can hear the sound of leather rubbing against leather as he settles down into his recliner. 

They climb the stairs quickly and Eddie remains quiet behind him. After the door to Richie’s bedroom clicks closed, Richie lets out a long rotting breath and watches as Eddie looks around, like he’s forgotten what Richie’s room looks like. 

Richie goes over to sit on his bed as Eddie walks over to his dresser and looks at the lone picture frame sitting on top of it. It’s a picture of Richie and his dad.

“Does your dad care if you have people over?” 

Richie shrugs despite the fact that Eddie has his back turned.

“It’s fine,” Richie says.

Eddie turns around and they stare at each other. 

The way Richie’s insides are squirming around is becoming increasingly more annoying. How can Eddie still do that to him? How can he still make Richie’s hands shake, and his heart lurch? Why does everything Eddie do still make him so god damn nervous? Sometimes it feels as if Richie won’t ever be able to be comfortable or content around him. 

He wolfs down some air and after almost choking on it, he looks down into his lap. 

Eddie sighs softly.

Later, they’re both sitting on Richie’s bed with their backs to the head board and their eyes fixed on the small TV across from them. Richie hates decisions so he gave Eddie the remote, and Eddie had left it on a channel playing some show Richie’s never seen before. Richie doesn’t mind being lost, and to be honest, he’s barely paying attention anyways. He’s learned from experience that it’s very distracting when Eddie’s this close to him. 

“Are you staying the night?” Richie blurts. It’s nearing nine and when Richie thinks about Eddie sleeping over at his house, in his bed. It makes body ache. 

Eddie turns his head to look at him. 

“Do you want me to?” he asks and it’s a tricky question. Of course Richie wants Eddie to stay. He’d lock him in his basement and keep him there forever if he could- which is something he needs to stop thinking about.

“D-doesn’t matter to me,” Richie stutters out, feeling totally lame. 

“I haven’t spent the night anywhere in like three years.” 

“Really? Quinton crashes on the floor sometimes- but-” Richie cuts himself off when he’s close to serving Eddie an even greater heaping of his inevitable lameness. 

“But?” 

“But- I don’t have any other friends.” 

“No?” Eddie asks, as if he didn’t already know that.

“No. Why do you think I’m always up to hang out?.” 

“I don’t have any friends either,” Eddie says, he starts to pick at a loose string hanging off of Richie’s comforter. “Freshmen year I had so many ‘friends,’ I could barely remember everyone's name. But when Bill skipped out on us, everyone went with him.” 

Richie offers him an understanding nod, but he wonders what that’s like; being so close to someone for so long and having it all turn into nothing. 

Richie hardly thinks about what he’s saying when he says, “Bill kind of sucks.” 

“He didn’t used to be like that,” Eddie says almost defensively, “his brother’s gone- and he’s going through a bad time.”

Beverly told him about Bill’s brother being killed in an accident, but that was a few years ago and a lot of the shit Bill has done since has buried Richie’s reason to rationalize Bill’s actions. But Eddie cares about him still, and that makes him feel bad. 

“Sorry,” he says. 

“No-” Eddie says, “you are right. He’s been acting really shitty, but he isn’t a bad person.” 

“I believe you,” Richie says, and in some sense he does. Richie’s never liked Bill, but his reasonings may have been misconstrued and formed on the basis that Bill’s always been closest to Eddie. That along with the fact that Bill’s always sounded like a jackass when he talks. Those things may have contributed to Richie’s strong dislike for the guy. But Eddie cares about him and Richie cares about Eddie and he cares about what Eddie thinks and about how he feels. 

“Do you ever talk to him?” Richie finds himself asking. 

Eddie breathes out. “No.” 

“You think you ever will?” 

“That’s up to him.” 

“What about Ben?”

“He should be over it by now.” 

The longer the conversation goes on, the more beat up Eddie looks. Richie resists the urge to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him into his chest. He knows having Eddie’s body so close to his would have him acting up. 

“If it bothers you so much, maybe you should do something about it.” 

“I don’t know.” 

Talking about this kind of stuff is hard. That is made obvious by the discomfort taking over Eddie’s features. Richie decides it’s not a good look on him. He doesn’t say anything else. They sit there in silence until it’s late, and Richie’s yawning and slumping down even farther into his bed. 

“I’m about to pass out,” Eddie says.

“Me too." Richie shifts around, bumping into Eddie’s side in the process. He throws his legs over the side of the bed and almost feels nauseous as he stands, like he’d just been on a boat for the last twelve years. 

Richie hesitantly makes his way over to his closet where he reaches up to the top shelf to yank a blanket down. He turns and finds Eddie watching him. Their meets his eyes. 

“I can sleep on the couch.” Richie suggests. He finds that it’s an awkward suggestion, but Richie feels that it is an awkward situation. He isn’t sure if occasionally having sex gives him the right to assume that Eddie’s okay with sharing a bed with him. 

But Eddie looks at him kind of surprised.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says.

Richie shrugs. He’s not going argue. 

He grips the blanket tighter in his hands, not knowing what to do with it now.

“I’m going to the bathroom.” He declares before stepping out of his room and standing in front of his door for a few long seconds. Then he hears his dad coming up the stairs. He doesn’t move. 

“Richie,” his dad says. 

“Hi dad,” Richie responds. 

“Your friend still here?” 

Richie skips a second before he answers, “Yeah, is it okay if he stays the night?” 

“Seems like you’ve already made that decision,” his father says gruffly. He gets closer and Richie instinctively shrinks back. “I don’t care that you have friends over sometimes but just let me know about it."

Richie nods. 

He goes to his room after that and Richie opens the closet door across from his room so that he can shove the no longer needed blanket onto the bottom shelf. He returns to his room where Eddie’s standing in front of his dresser again, staring at the same picture he’d asked about before. He turns around when Richie enters and gives him a tight smile. 

“Do you have any clothes I can sleep in?” he asks, gesturing down at his jeans. Richie’s heart stalls because now he’s picturing Eddie in one of his tee-shirts. 

Richie nods towards the closet.

A few minutes after Eddie starts scavenging through his closet, Richie is in the middle of fixing the sheets around his bed when the sound of metal clinking against metal makes him turn his head. He sees Eddie standing there, with a lunchbox in his hands. 

Richie stands straight up and starts moving towards him almost mechanically. An oh drops from his mouth, but nothing else seems to follow.

Eddie’s already opened the lunchbox and is now looking through the papers stuffed inside. Richie almost rushes over to him to jerk it from his grasp and throw it out the window. 

“Oh,” he says again, watching Eddie’s eyes shift from paper to paper, his expression remaining in the same dull, unchanging pose. 

After a while, Eddie lifts his head to meet Richie’s worried gaze. 

“Well this is embarrassing,” Richie murmurs.

“I thought you didn’t like art,” Eddie says.

Richie assumes Eddie is only saying that to be nice. 

The papers inside of the spider-man lunchbox, the one in which Richie had taken from Eddie in the fourth grade, had Eddie sketched all over them. Different shades and shapes, drawn over and drawn dark, scribbled, etched; not all of Eddie, but mostly.

The embarrassment that is coursing through Richie right now is a deep dark hue of red and he knows that this color will stain his insides forever. He’s so red, from head to toe. 

Eddie is just staring at him. 

“I- don’t,” Richie fumbles his reply but the question feels about a year old anyways.

Eddie blinks and looks down again. 

“You can have it back- if you want,” Richie says, but it sounds weird and he wishes the Earth would explode. 

Eddie waits a couple beats to respond. He says, “That’s okay.” 

The only time Richie ever drew consistently was throughout middle school. He’d scribble on clips of loose leaf, on the backs of handouts and on small post it notes that he’d stick in random places. He doesn’t know why Eddie had to be his muse. He doesn’t know why he decided to put his drawings in that spider man lunch box. He doesn’t know why it’s still sitting in his closet. He doesn’t understand himself very well. 

Eddie closes the lunch box, clicking it’s lock back into place. He puts it back on the top shelf where he’d found it. 

“I’m sorry," Richie says once they’re standing face to face again. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” 

Eddie shrugs but Richie still feels like he’s standing in a bonfire. 

“It’s okay,” Eddie says, like he’s trying to downplay it.

“This is probably the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.” 

“It’s okay,” Eddie repeats but this time adding a small laugh. 

“Those are from middle school- I don’t-” Richie making it worse by continuing to talk about it. Eddie shakes his head. 

“You don’t have to explain. I know how you feel about me.” Eddie sounds so sure and solid when he says it. Richie can’t help but think about how strange it is that people can change so much.

“That doesn’t make me feel much better.” 

Twenty minutes later, they’re laying in bed about a canyon apart and Richie’s heart still hasn’t taken a break. He doesn’t go to touch Eddie like he wants to. He doesn’t even let himself roll over into a more comfortable position. His entire body feels as if it’s being clenched with a physical uneasiness that he’s only heard other people talk about before. He has the urge to toss and turn just to lessen its effect, but Eddie’s laying next to him and that would be rude. 

There are so many things he wants to say, so many explanations he’d like to blurt in defense, but Eddie hadn’t acted like he even cared and Richie knows it’d be overkill to say all of that now. 

Instead, they both say nothing at all and fall asleep in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since I've updated here are some shitty excuses 1. I'm a lazy ass bitch 2. vacation 3. met a boy


	17. Richie

Richie hasn’t been hanging out with Beverly very often and he wishes he could say that it has nothing to do with Eddie but that would be a lie. 

When she finally gets a hold on him, she drags him to a birthday party for a guy he’s never met. 

He’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, in a swarm of people, when the fact that he doesn’t want to be there rains over him as if he’d just been jumped by a thunderstorm.

Someone next to him lights a cigarette and starts to smoke it right there in the kitchen. Richie taps their shoulder and asks, 

“Can I bum one of those off of you?”

The guy shrugs and then shakes the pack in Richie’s direction. Richie takes one and drops the guy a short thanks. He does not light it in the house.

After he’s outside, standing on a rickety porch, he realizes that he doesn’t have a lighter. This is a shitty revelation. Now he’s stuck shifting his weight from leg to leg and holding an unlit cigarette between his fingers. He sucks in mouth full cold air and lets himself feel like an idiot.

The sound of the door creaking open and someone stepping out onto the porch hits Richie a few minutes later. Initially, he isn’t curious enough to turn around but he does wonder if they have a lighter. 

“Didn’t know you were here,” they say. The voice is familiar and soon curiosity finds him and has him looking over his shoulder. He sees Luciano standing a few feet behind him, watching him. 

Luciano’s hands are shoved into his pockets and the collar of his jacket is pulled up to his ears, like he’s trying to hide from the cold. 

“Oh. Hey.” Richie greets before facing ahead again. Luciano steps forward so that he and Richie are shoulder to shoulder.

“Haven’t seen much of you recently.” Luciano says. 

Richie feels a bit of guilt at his core as he recalls Luciano’s unanswered text messages sitting on his phone. He’s not great at rejecting people. He’d rather say nothing at all. 

“Yeah, I’ve just been busy,” he responds. Richie doesn't realize Luciano has pulled out a lighter until he’s lifting it, sparking it and waiting for Richie's next move. 

Richie raises his cigarette and holds it to the flame until its end catches. Then he puts it in his mouth. 

Luciano makes a soft humming sound before there’s a quiet stretch of time. Richie continues to puff on his cigarette and Luciano stares across the street at the neighbours house like he’s mesmerized by its architecture. 

“Do you wanna maybe come over tonight?” Luciano eventually asks, his voice small.

Richie gives the cig another inhale just to stall for time.

“Uh... I’m actually kind of tired,” he says. 

“Oh- yeah- no big deal.” Luciano says quickly. There’s another flood of silence before he asks, “are free at all next week?” 

Richie has a rougher time coming up with a response to that one.

He decides to be honest. 

“I’m sort of seeing someone.” Richie admits.

“Oh.” Luciano says lowly, “I thought you didn’t date.” 

“I make exceptions sometimes.” 

“Who is it?” Luciano asks in an even weaker voice than the one he’s been using. 

“You don’t know them.” Richie says. It’s a lie. They all have English together and it’s not like their school is very big to begin with; everyone knows everyone. 

“It’s not Eddie Kaspbrak?” 

Richie supposes he’s more obvious than he thought.

“Oh, maybe you do,” Richie says, sloppily backpedaling. 

“You always used to act like you hated that guy.” 

“I’m a piece of shit. What can I say?” 

“I don’t think you’re a piece of shit.” Luciano’s voice reverts back to its original softness. It causes Richie to look at him, their eyes meet. 

“Thanks,” Richie says, matching his tone.

“Yeah.” 

-

Just because Richie finds it impossible to sleep with someone else, doesn’t mean that Eddie does. 

Ever since his encounter with Luciano last Friday night, Richie hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Eddie having sex with other guys. 

It only gets worse when he goes to school Monday morning and watches Eddie talk to a guy called Jake Louyer as he simultaneously stuffs something into his locker. 

Everyone knows Jake Louyer is a homo. 

Richie does everything he can to swallow the red but just seeing Eddie laugh at something another dude says has him kind of messed up. He feels like an idiot.

Richie doesn’t stop staring, even when they start moving down the hallway and it borderlines into stalking. Jake walks Eddie to his first period class and Richie has to restrain himself from walking up to them and shoving Jake into another dimension. He's never liked Jake. 

He’s being completely over dramatic, he knows, but he’s found that it's terribly hard for him to keep his emotions in check when it comes to Eddie. It’s pathetic, he knows that too.

So he spends first period mopping and picturing Eddie underneath Jake Louyer making noises that Richie should only be allowed to hear. He’s pissed about it. 

Right before lunch, Eddie’s at his locker once again and Richie can’t help but notice the way he looks: soft. And for some reason it hits somewhere deep and a rush of confidence sends him stumbling over. 

Things have been a bit awkward ever since the night that Eddie stayed over. But right now, Richie doesn’t care about that. He takes Eddie by the elbow and without any explanation, drags him down the hallway in search of some place private. 

All that comes out of Eddie is a confused, “Richie?” 

There’s a staff bathroom no one uses just off the freshmen hallway. Richie pushes down on the door knob and shoves the door open with his back, pulling Eddie in behind him. Once they’re inside, Richie locks the door and then turns to Eddie.

Eddie's staring up at him with broadened eyes and a parted mouth. 

Richie can't stand it. 

He rushes over to Eddie and they both stumble back until Eddie’s pressed up against the wall next to the sink. Richie cages him in and then covers Eddie’s mouth with his own. 

At first Eddie doesn’t move, presumably out of shock, but at some point he warms up under Richie’s hold and his lips struggle to catch up. It’s very intense and it’s very hot. Richie feels like someone’s lit a fire next to them. 

Richie can’t help but feel a buzz when Eddie snakes his arms around his neck to pull him in closer. Eddie murmurs something that sounds like Richie’s name into his mouth and it has Richie surging forward, erasing any leftover space between them. 

Richie’s hands start searching. He worms his fingers through the belt loops in Eddie’s jeans, and tugs down. Eddie responds by grinding up against him, which in turn, has Richie impossibly close to losing it. When Richie pushes back down into him, Eddie gasps as he fists a hand into Richie’s shirt. 

The kiss only evolves from there. Richie undoes the button on Eddie’s pants and slides his hand in over his boxers. Eddie jerks forward with a whine and clashes into Richie’s chest. He breaks their kiss to breathe out against the side of Richie’s neck. This makes all the hair on Richie’s body stand up. 

Richie touches him and Eddie has to push his face into Richie’s shirt to muffle the noises bubbling up in his throat. Eddie starts breathing deeper and he helps Richie out by moving to the pace of his hand. It makes Richie’s head swirl. 

“Don’t let anyone else touch you like this.” Richie rasps against Eddie’s cheek. 

Eddie sighs at the low rumble of Richie’s voice. His trembling hands search for Richie’s shoulders and his nails dig through the fabric of his shirt when he finds them. With every passing second his grip only tightens, like he’d fall to the floor if he were to let go. 

Eddie’s whole body shutters when he comes and Richie holds onto him until he’s done. They stay like that for a while as Eddie recovers. 

Then Eddie’s hands start to move downward on Richie’s body. 

“You don’t have to,” he says, more so because it’s embarrassing how close he is already just from watching Eddie. But Eddie ignores him and proceeds to touch him anyways.

As Richie anticipated, it doesn't take long. 

They clean up and sit down next to each other, against the wall.

“What was that?” Eddie asks. 

“Uh…” Richie responds. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to answer that. The silence that floods them grows outdated very quickly and Eddie’s still waiting for him to say something. “I uh- are you still seeing anyone else?” 

Eddie blinks at him. 

“I mean it’s fine if you are,” Richie says quickly (it’s definitely not fine) “I’m just curious.” 

“I’m not.” 

Relief surrounds him. 

“Are you?” Eddie asks calmly, looking straight at him. 

“No,” he says immediately. 

“Cool,” Eddie replies. Then he gets to his feet. “I think we can still make it to English if we run.”

He sticks his arm out, offering to help Richie up.

Richie takes his hand. 

-

Richie slouches over the counter with his knuckles firm against his cheek and an outstretched arm in front of him. His fingers graze over the countertop as he taps against its edge in a sloppy rhythm. His eyes are half closed and he doesn’t think he’s ever been more bored in his entire life. 

Suddenly, he feels a pair of hands grip him by the waist and he’s abruptly pulled backwards. His backside bumps against something hard. He twists his head to look behind him and finds Rae pretending to butt fuck him. 

“Rae what the fuck?” he says surging forward, clashing into the counter. He stands up straight and properly turns around.

“You shouldn’t put yourself in such a vulnerable position.” Rae says, smiling crookedly. 

“I’m reporting you for sexual assault.” Richie mumbles. The bell goes off and their attention flees to watch someone make a beeline for the medicine aisle.

“Then who will sign your checks?” Rae asks, returning his gaze to Richie and propping his hands up on his bulbous waist. 

“I will, because Samuel will realize that I’m more fit for your job than you are.” 

“Hey now.” 

Richie’s smiling, but only a little. He rolls his eyes. 

The women in the medicine aisle comes up to the counter with two fists full of neosporin and Richie can’t help but wonder why one person would need so much neosporin. He rings out about six tubes and throws them all into a bag. The women thanks him a few times and then leaves. 

“Wonder what kind of rash she has.” Rae says from the fold up chair he’s settled down into. Richie says nothing. He knows that anything he could possibly say would be turned into some gross joke he’d rather not hear. 

Later, while Richie’s restocking a shelf of chips, the bell goes off again and when he looks over, he finds Eddie standing in front of the door, looking around the store.

Richie blinks and drops a bag of funions on the floor. He quickly ducks down to pick them up and then shoves them back onto the shelf, in the wrong spot. 

He rushes over to Eddie. 

“Eddie,” he says a little breathlessly, feeling a warm cloudy haze engulf him. Eddie gazes back at him and smiles. “What are you doing here?” 

“I was taking Scout for a walk and I kind of just ended up here,” Eddie says and by the time Eddie’s done speaking, his words have slowed and his cheeks have started to gather a pink warmness in them. Richie’s heart swells. 

Eddie had wanted to see him.

“I’m off in fifteen minutes, I can drive you home.” 

There’s a pause where Eddie looks like he’s mauling it over, eventually he agrees. “Yeah, okay.” 

Richie smiles and then notices Rae staring at them out of the corner of his eye. Rae then stands up and takes a few steps forward until he’s directly behind the counter. Now Eddie’s looking at him too. 

“This is Eddie,” Richie says gesturing towards Eddie who then nods at Rae. Rae nods back, then he says, 

“Rae,” before letting a pause slip in. He looks back at Richie and says, “I was starting to think you really didn’t have any friends.” 

“Oh that’s rich coming from you.” Richie snaps back. Rae laughs and shrugs. 

“So Eddie, tell me something about Richie that I don’t know.” 

Eddie makes an expression like he’s about to tap his chin in thought. Then he says, 

“Well he cums faster if you cup his balls.” 

A loud wave of silence crashes down over them. Richie’s eyes bug and he almost chokes on the air caught in his throat. 

A few seconds later, Rae starts laughing and when Richie looks over at him, he’s wiping tears from his eyes. 

“That’s funny.” Rae says through a chuckle. Eddie shrugs. 

The shock of the joke still has Richie feeling a little stiff but he regains enough feeling in his hands to reach over and thump Eddie on the back of the shoulder. Eddie looks at him with an expression that can only mean fondness. 

Fifteen minutes goes by ridiculously fast when Rae won’t stop talking about Richie’s lowest moments in the customer service industry. It’s a whole lot of embarrassing shit that Eddie definitely didn’t have to hear. 

Outside, they meet Scout who hasn’t strayed from the spot that Eddie left him in earlier. Richie immediately bends down to scratch him between the ears and Scout wags his tail and tries to lick his hand. 

“That was probably the dirtiest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” Richie says as the three of them make their way over to his truck. 

“I thought it would be funny but it looked like you were about to pass out.” Eddie says but he’s smiling

“I mean- yeah.” Richie says reaching into the jacket pocket where his keys are hiding. “I just wasn’t expecting it.” 

“Sorry,” Eddie says simply. He pops open the back door for Scout who obediently jumps in. Then he seats himself in the passenger seat. 

“It’s okay, It’s not like I give a shit what Rae thinks,” Richie says. 

Rae is a forty year old man who fucks dirty women he meets in bars. Richie does not give a shit what a Rae thinks about his sex life.

“Okay,” Eddie says. He gazes out the window. It’s dark out and lamp posts can barely fend off the blackness in the sky. They live in an old town, a town that’s unimportant enough to never warrant the need for a light bulb change. 

“Do you wanna come in and study for our exam?” Eddie asks. 

“Yeah, okay,” Richie obligues and then a few seconds later he almost slams on his breaks. They’re about a block away from Eddie’s house and he’s just now realized he’s left all his shit in the break room. 

“Fuck,” he says, “I left my bookbag at Mike’s.” 

“Shit.” Eddie says. 

“I’ll drop you off and go back.” he suggests but Eddie shakes his head. 

“Nah, anything to keep me out of the house.” he insists and on that note, Richie turns the truck around. 

When they pull back into Mike’s, Richie doesn’t even bother parking in a parking spot. He just pulls right up on the curb of the sidewalk. He doesn’t really expect Eddie to get out of the truck and follow him to the door, but that’s what he does. 

All the lights are off already and Richie’s grateful he’d stolen Rae’s extra key. A guy like Rae shouldn’t own two keys. It’s very likely if he were to lose one he’d lose the other at the same time.

Richie unlocks the door and the bell chimes above them as they walk in. He doesn’t even flip the lights on- just heads straight into the break room. He swings an arm through the doorway and catches the strap of his backpack which had been sitting on the floor next to the doorframe. 

He does not take the time to look into the dark room. 

When he returns, he finds Eddie leaning up against the counter with his arms folded over his chest. The sight of Eddie being so casual in his workplace sends a jolt of excitement through his body. Eddie looks at him and somehow instantly knows what he’s thinking about. 

Richie slowly strides up to him and slides his hand onto Eddie’s neck. He feels Eddie swallow against his palm. Richie pulls him forward into a kiss. 

They makeout, only separating once so that Richie can pant “Scout?” to which Eddie shakes his head and smiles into his mouth. 

They separate a second time when they hear the sound of a can falling against the tiled floor and the -glug glug- of its fluids spilling out everywhere. 

Startled by the noise, Richie jumps back- away from Eddie. They both snap their heads in the direction of the sound.

Rae is standing in front of the door to the break room. His mouth is slightly parted and there seems to be a shit ton of question marks swarming around him like a beehive of confusion had just hatched over his head. Richie’s chest starts to squeeze in on itself. 

“What the fuck?” Rae says and he doesn’t sound angry or disgusted, just confused. 

He still hasn’t moved to pick up the can of beer at his feet and seconds later it empties itself out. Richie watches the dark liquid seep through the crack of the gate and out onto the sales floor. 

Then something else clicks in Richie’s brain. 

“Are you sleeping here Rae?” 

“Do not change the subject kid,” Rae rebutes. 

“I left my bag here. I just came back to get it.” Richie explains, clearly avoiding addressing what Rae’s actually talking about.

“Okay,” Rae says with a small nod. His eyes flit between the two of them. Eddie continues to stand next to Richie, wordlessly. “I guess I’m just a little surprised. I had no idea you were gay, Rich.” 

“I don’t know if gay’s the right term for it.” Richie says lowly, his eyes find his shoes and he stares at the dirt on his laces. 

“Well it’s not... wait a minute- so was that joke about your balls actually true?” Rae gasps. 

Eddie starts to laugh.

Richie awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. 

“Yeah it was,” Eddie says. 

-

Once they head back to Eddie’s for the second time, Eddie starts laughing again. 

“What?” Richie asks. 

“I just- I don’t know- it’s like- of course that would happen,” he says smiling widely, he brushes his hand against his chin and sighs. 

“Shitty timing.” Richie mumbles, gripping onto the steering wheel trying to dilute his focus away from Eddie’s smile. 

“Rae’s cool- kind of obnoxious.” Eddie comments. 

“He’s not a bad guy,” Richie shrugs. 

“Yeah I di- Richie Richie- deer,” Eddie says in a voice so calm Richie hardly registers what’s happening until he sees a buck just about run into the side of the truck. 

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Richie’s says. He jerks the steering wheel, swerving into the other lane and away from the deer, who then stumbles into a ditch. 

“Oh shit he fell.” Eddie says, staring out the window. 

“What the fuck- fucking stupid fucking animal.” Richie curses. He makes no attempt to filter himself, instead, he devotes all his attention to bedding his nerves and slowing his heart rate. 

If he’s grateful for anything it’s that the roads are clear; that dodge definitely would have taken them sliding into another vehicle if there had been one there. Richie swerves back into the correct lane. He's still holding onto the steering wheel like his life depends on it.

“Fucking deer- overpopulating this fucking earth- stupid mother fuckers.” Richie rages, still trying to catch a grip. 

“He didn’t know any better.” Eddie counters.

“Are you really gonna defend that bitch ass deer? Mother fucker could have killed us. Stupid fucking animal.” Richie keeps going, “Run towards the huge unnatural light source going fifty miles an hour, why don’t you? Good fucking deal, survival instincts at their fucking peak.” 

“Hey we’re the ones who destroyed their environment.” 

“Eddie-” Richie says with a clenched jaw. Now he feels attacked, especially when Eddie laughs. “We could have died,” he says almost breathlessly. 

“Relax the worst that would have happened is you running over his legs.”

“What?” Richie squeaks. “The worst that could have happened is if he ran out in front of us and came smashing through the windshield and impaling us both with his antlers. Then we’d all be dead.” 

“Well it’s a good thing that didn’t happen.” 

“You’re crazy.” Richie shakes his head but he’d be lying if he said quarreling with Eddie about something so stupid hasn’t calmed him down. Richie starts to suspect Eddie’s aware of what he’s doing. 

He slides his hand onto Richie’s thigh and squeezes. It’s a comforting gesture. 

Richie feels better afterward.


	18. Richie

Quinton’s been itching to do something terrible. Richie sees it on his face as soon as he walks in the room. 

They’re at Eddie’s and it’s a little unusual because Eddie’s mom doesn’t leave the house very often, and Eddie says he’d sooner stab his eyes out than to introduce people to his mother. Richie’s never met her. 

It’s Sunday and they have an exam tomorrow. An exam of which Richie is very unprepared for. An exam which Eddie promised he’d help him study for. 

They don’t study for the exam. They make out for a good half hour instead. 

Now they’re in the living room and Richie’s got his arm resting along the back of the sofa so that his hand is touching Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie’s tucked up against the crook of his arm and every so often he’ll run a hand down Richie’s thigh. It’s a dangerous thing to be doing. Richie’s not good with control when Eddie’s around.

They’re sat like that when Quinton waltzes into the house with that constipated expression on his face. 

But when Quinton sees them, he freezes up, as if seeing the two of them sitting so close together is a shock. Quinton squints at them for a few seconds, like he doesn’t believe his eyes. Eventually he softens and goes over to sit down. 

Richie does not move, even when his body is telling him that he needs to put distance between himself and Eddie.

“I got into Union,” Quinton says flatly. 

Richie’s attention snaps towards him. 

“Q, that’s great,” he says in the brightest voice he has. 

“Yeah. It would be fantastic if I actually had something I was interested in.”

“You have interests.” Richie says. Quinton glances at Eddie before looking back to Richie.

“No useful interests.” 

“In certain situations I’d say they’re useful.” 

“What interests?” Eddie asks to neither one of them in particular. Quinton’s staring at Richie now. 

“He likes fucking with people.” Richie explains shortly. Eddie still looks confused. 

“What?” he asks.

Suddenly Quinton sighs dramatically and flops back against the couch cushion behind him. He throws an arm over his forehead and looks up at the ceiling. 

“I used to be on top of the fucking world. Now look at me. I have nothing. No ideas, no motivation, no future, nothing. I’m nothing," Quinton moans. 

“Hey- what about your senior prank.” 

“It’s not enough.” 

“Senior prank?” Eddie asks. Richie finds it extremely endearing how he’s trying to keep up with a conversation that probably makes very little sense to him. 

“I’m buying a shit ton of smelly cheese and I’m going to tape it under desks and hide it in the vents.” 

“Oh.” Eddie says. He unconsciously shuffles even closer to Richie. Richie does his best not to react. 

“You can tell absolutely no one. I only trust you with this information because Richie has deemed you worthy.” 

“I won’t," Eddie says firmly. 

“Okay, but how is that not enough? They’ll be scraping cheese of the floors for the next three years,” Richie says. 

“Sounds like a pretty great prank to me,” Eddie says. 

“Yeah, a ‘great’ prank. I want something jaw dropping. Something that people will remember for the rest of their lives.” 

“It’s not that deep, Q," Richie says. 

“It’s my passion.” 

“You could rob a zoo and fill the school with penguins or something,” Eddie suggests. 

“Now that is an idea," Quinton says, like he's actually considering it. 

“Quinton,” Richie says, trying to reach into Quinton’s delusional brain and pull him out of that awful idea.

“Ugghhh," he groans, “I really don’t want to fucking study business.” 

“Then don’t," Richie says simply. 

“Easier said than done. If I’m not making six figures by the time I’m twenty-five then I’ll be disowned.” 

“That’s a little ridiculous," Eddie chimes in. 

“It is what it is,” Quinton huffs. He looks down at his hands and clenches them closed only to open them again. “Did you get into wherever the fuck you applied?” he asks. 

Richie barely remembers the applying process, only that he did It. There had been a study hall where the guidance counselor sat him down and walked him through it. He probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise. 

He’d gotten letters from all three of the schools he’d applied to, and he’s probably gotten into at least one of them, but the letters are still sitting unopened in the bottom drawer of his desk. 

“Dunno, I haven’t looked at the letters.” 

Quinton and Eddie both stare at him with the same strange expressions on their faces. 

“Okay." Quinton says slowly. He looks at Eddie. “What about you?” 

“I’m going to Kinsley in the fall.” he says. Richie stares at the side of his face. 

He hadn’t known that. They never talk about that kind of stuff. 

“That’s like three hours away.” 

“Yeah. I’ve gotta get out of here before my mom suffocates me to death,” Eddie’s talking about it so casually that it makes Richie’s head hurt. 

Kinsley is one of the schools that Richie applied to, but he’d applied under the impression that he wasn’t going to get in. Besides, it was three hours away. If he did go to college, he planned to commute. 

His grip around Eddie loosens as he starts to feel an unspoken space worm it’s way between them. 

“So what are you planning to do Richie?” Quinton asks. 

He doesn’t know. 

“I don’t know,” he says and his voice drags so low that Quinton and Eddie exchange looks, like they’re concerned, like they should stop talking about it. 

“That’s okay," Quinton says. 

Richie knows that it won’t be okay in a few months when they graduate, when everyone leaves, when he’s still working at Mike’s, still not knowing what the fuck he's doing. 

Quinton sighs, ending the conversation to glance down at his phone. 

“Where the fuck is Ben? We are gonna miss our movie.” 

 

-

It’s weird when Eddie actually takes Richie’s advice. 

He decides he’s going to talk to Bill. He tells Richie that he’ll be gone in a few months anyway so there’s no harm in at least attempting to leave things on better terms. 

Richie agrees with him. 

Eddie decides that the best place to have a serious conversation is in an empty gym. So during lunch, Eddie anxiously approaches Bill’s lunch table and taps on his shoulder. Richie and Ben watch him do this from a couple tables back. 

“It’s like we were friends a whole lifetime ago,” Ben says in a sad sounding voice, and Richie isn’t sure that he has anything comforting to say. 

They watch Bill turn around and look up. Even from where they are, they can see the surprise coming into his features. Then something light joins it. 

Eddie says something, then Bill says something, and then Bill stands up and they cross the room together, heading for the hallway.

Richie rotates forward and looks down at his lunch tray. Suddenly, he isn’t very hungry. 

He feels uneasy. Ben feels it too. 

“I would have gone to back him up, but it probably would have been an overload.”

“You’re not mad anymore?” Richie asks, some curiosity slipping into his tone. 

Ben shakes his head and shrugs. “It’s not something I ever think about.” 

Richie nods and returns his gaze to his tray. 

“So…” Ben starts, “how is Beverly?” 

That makes Richie look up, a gust of surprise paired up with some confusion taking place in his expression.

“Do you really care?” he asks. Ben stares at him. 

“I mean, I guess not,” he says and then pauses. “Honestly I was hoping you’d just give me the satisfaction of telling me she’s doing awful.” 

“Well it’s not like she’s doing good.” 

Ben makes a strange expression, “I guess there isn’t any satisfaction in that.” 

“No?” 

“No.” 

It gets quiet after that and Richie feels a flat awkwardness crawl across the table and punch him in the face. Then Ben laughs. 

“I always thought it was funny that the two worst people in the school somehow became friends,” Ben says casually. Then realization dawns on his face and he looks a little remorseful. “Shit, that wasn’t fair, you’re not the worst.” 

Richie blinks at him and something dark inflates in his stomach. He thinks Ben may have just hurt his feelings. He doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, sounding antsy in Richie's silence. 

“It’s okay," Richie responds. 

Richie folds his hands together in his lap and takes a deep breath. 

“I know you don’t like me, but you don’t have to worry about Eddie. I’m not going to hurt him. I don’t think I can.” Richie says. Eddie almost seems untouchable, like he’s got his emotions under a deadbolt. Richie never knows what he’s thinking, or how he’s feeling. It makes him wonder how transparent he himself actually is. 

Ben looks a little confused. 

“What are you talking about? You definitely could. He likes you, Richie,” Ben says. 

A distorted feeling of relief spills into Richie. It’s followed by a wave of guilt. 

“Really?” Richie asks.

Ben stares at him. 

“Yeah,” he says slowly, like Richie is stupid.

There’s some more silence. 

“You’re so different,” Ben says, still staring. Richie meets his eye. “What happened?” 

Richie isn’t really sure. He knows he’s different, he even put effort into making sure that he’s different. He was awful when he was younger, completely unchecked and foolish. But at some point something clicked and he knew he couldn’t continue to be like that anymore; so he stopped.

And now he's like this. 

Richie shrugs. 

“Why Eddie?” Ben asks when it becomes apparent that Richie doesn’t plan on answering his first question. 

‘Why Eddie?’ almost seems to be his slogan. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know anything but the fact that Eddie’s now in a reaching distance and soon he’ll be gone again.

Richie is hurt over it. 

“I don’t know,” he says because he doesn’t. 

-

Eddie doesn’t come to English, and later, when the three of them are sitting in Richie’s truck, Eddie tells them that when he and Bill entered the gym, Bill looked at the floor and then the wall and then at Eddie before he started to cry. 

It was a little surprising to hear. 

Richie has a hard time picturing Bill with tears on his face and snot dripping down his chin, but that’s how Eddie described it. He doesn’t say much else about it other than that Bill hasn’t been doing very well these past couple of years.

Everyone already knows that, though.

Bill’s sad over his brother. Richie gets it. 

And for as much as Ben was wondering about what exactly was happening between Eddie and Bill in that gym, when Eddie starts to talk about it, Ben looks like he’s going to be sick all over the floor of Richie’s truck. 

“He wants us to hang out. The three of us,” Eddie says, twisting around so that he can look at Ben sitting in the back seat.

“Really?” 

“Yeah, he’s really- he’s the same, Ben.” 

Eddie doesn’t say much after that. 

It’s complicated. Richie gets it. 

-

 

Shit happens and sometimes Richie can’t control it. 

He feels bad, but Eddie makes him feel even worse by ignoring him for the next few days. 

Let’s backtrack. 

They’re at a party, which is already rare because Eddie doesn’t go to parties, but Bill had invited them. 

Well, to be clear, he only invited Ben and Eddie. Richie invited himself. 

Over the course of the last couple weeks, Eddie, Bill and Ben’s friendship has been under reconstruction. Richie hasn’t seen much of the progress. Not until tonight. 

Bill isn’t completely sloshed; it’s unusual, but he’s able to properly communicate with others. He hangs out with them. It’s fine. 

Bill doesn’t get why Richie’s around and it’s fairly obvious he doesn’t like it, but he doesn't say anything about it. The group's dynamic is too fragile for that right now. Bill and Richie don’t talk to each other. 

Bill is only part of the problem in this situation. 

Richie already began the night with a tightened arm around Eddie and a strange red feeling that only grows once he’s down a few drinks. He doesn’t know what to do with it. 

Then they see Noah standing across the room near a table of food.

Richie sees him first and does his best to diverge Eddie’s attention elsewhere. 

In the end, his efforts mean nothing because eventually Noah spots them and eagerly makes his way over.

“Eddie.” Noah says Eddie’s name like it’s a friendly greeting. He has a warm, lazy smile slinging from one side of his face to the other and it really makes Richie’s insides burn. Eddie slips from his grasp, and Richie has no other choice but to let him go. 

“Noah!” Eddie says happily.

Then Noah pulls him in for a hug, and Richie can’t help but to go hot with jealousy. It worsens when he sees that Eddie looks equally excited to return the gesture. 

“Damn, it’s been like two years," Noah says. Then he pauses to look Eddie up and down, “You look good.” 

Richie refrains from grabbing Eddie by the arm and yanking him back as he hisses at Noah like a wild animal, even though that is what his inborn instincts tell him to do. 

“Thanks, so do you.” Eddie says. Richie looks at the floor. 

“Richie?” Noah says as if he’s just now noticed Richie’s presence. Richie looks up at him and gives him a curt nod. 

“Are you guys-” Noah makes a weird gesture with his hands as if finishing the sentence is too hard for him to do. 

“No,” Eddie says. 

“Yes.” Richie says at the same time. They look at each other. 

 

Every vital organ that’s been keeping Richie alive seems to have collapsed and he feels the grief immediately. He understands that they’re not an actual couple, but for Eddie to say that when responding to a question like that from an ex boyfriend… Richie would say it’s a pretty messed up thing to do. 

“What?” Richie says, hurt catching in his throat. 

“You know we’re not.” 

Richie doesn’t even know what to say to that. His fists are aching at his sides, and his heart is slumped against his ribs. 

“Okay, ” he says, then turns around and walks away. 

If Eddie really wants to talk to Noah as a single guy, then Richie can’t do anything about it. If he wants to fuck Noah tonight, then Richie can’t do anything about it. Eddie can do whatever he wants, and Richie can’t do anything about it. 

He finds a quiet place in the garage to unhinge. It was a mistake. 

Bill’s in there and he comes up to Richie and stares at him like he’s got shit all over his face. 

“What?” Richie growls, not really intending for it to come out the way it does.

Bill’s eyebrows rise. 

“Nothing, just wondering what you’re so worked up about.” 

“You don’t really care.” 

“You’re right. What I’m really wondering is why the fuck Eddie is wasting his time with you.” 

That was a really unnecessary thing to say. Richie takes a breathe in and lets a ragged one out. 

“Why don’t you just go fucking ask him?” Richie says making sure to pile heat onto every word. Bill just looks amused. 

“He looked a bit busy last time I saw him.” Bill says it with a smug look on his face. It just about pushes Richie off the cliff of sanity. He tries to breathe through it and walk away, but then Bill grabs his arm. 

Bill shouldn’t have touched him. 

Richie spins around and yanks his arm away. Then he raises his hands and shoves Bill, hard. Bill stumbles back, his smirk slipping from his face, something less light taking its place. 

It takes Bill one long stride before he's standing in front of Richie again. He’s getting in his face and sizing him up a second later. 

They hadn’t seen Ben and Eddie enter the room. 

Richie goes to shove Bill again, but then Eddie pushes them apart so quickly Richie almost swings on him. 

“What the fuck?” Eddie says, looking between them. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“I was just trying to have a conversation,” Bill says, retreating. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Richie's voice is so malicious that it causes Eddie to look at him. 

There’s something in the way Eddie's eyes glaze over him, like he’s just now remembering how mean Richie knows how to be.

Eddie steps away from him. 

And that hurts Richie’s chest. but he’s still too angry and he still has nothing to say. So he leaves.

-

 

Richie almost feels as if he’s going through the motions of a break up. He can’t seem to get a grip. 

Eddie does a poor job communicating with him for the rest of the week. In art there's a lot of yes or no replies, and it doesn't get much better over text. Richie’s apologized a couple times, but Eddie is still acting different. 

He doesn’t seem like he’s mad -- he’s being more than civil -- but it’s like all the affection is gone. Richie had hardly even noticed it was there until it wasn’t.

And then Beverly invites him to another party where he meets a few boys who go by the names of Mark, Jason and Frank. Mark, Jason and Frank are sophomores in college and do heavy drugs on their off days. Surprisingly, they’re all honor roll students. 

They give Richie something.

“This will have you turning inside out," Mark says. 

Richie blinks at him and isn’t sure if that sounds all that appealing. 

Richie hesitates, but eventually picks up the pill and puts it in his mouth and swallows it. 

A few seconds later, Jason comes up to him and sticks his finger in Richie’s mouth. Something bitter spreads from the back of his teeth down into his throat. He chokes a little and quickly draws back. Jason laughs. 

“Just a little coke.” 

Richie doesn’t say anything. 

They’re outside on someone’s back patio, and Richie isn’t sure how he ended up hanging out with these guys, but he isn’t having a bad time. The patio is surrounded by a bunch of trees, and it’s very peaceful. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Frank says staring off into the trees. 

“And go where?” Richie asks. Frank turns around to look at him. 

“Exploring. These types of things are much more fun when you’re fucked up.” 

“Okay,” Richie says, and the four of them walk off of the patio and toward the forest. 

They walk around for a malanium before Richie starts feeling time distort and disappear into oblivion. Richie’s fucked up. 

When he looks at the trees they seem to be giving each other handshakes, and when he looks at the sky he feels like he’s looking directly into space. 

He stumbles a few times trying to keep up with the crew, which causes everyone to laugh at him but he doesn’t mind, he laughs too.

Then they come across an abandoned house. 

The house is made up of dark wood and crooked windows. It’s an extremely creepy scene when you’re with a bunch of strangers at night in the woods on a drug you’ve never even heard of. 

“Let’s go in,” Frank says. 

No one opposes, so they all follow Frank onto the dingy porch with chipping grey paint. Frank turns the door knob and pushes it open. They walk in. 

Richie isn't exactly sure what they're on but it definitely shut off their abilities to rationalize. They were in the house looking around for a good amount of time and not once did any of them register that the house looked lived in. 

Instead, Mark says, “A TV!" Then he rushes up to it. He picks it up and hugs it to himself, “I’m taking it.” 

“Alright, rock on,” Jason says like he’s a stoner from the seventies. 

After that, they start making their way out. They barely notice the red and blue lights flashing through the windows. But then it clicks in Richie’s brain and he freezes. 

They make it out onto the porch when Mark drops the T.V to the ground and takes off sprinting towards the back of the house, Frank and Jason not far behind him. But Richie can hardly walk, he’d never be able to keep up. 

He sacrifices himself.

It’s a terrible terrible decision. 

It’s not his father swinging out of the patrol car and running up to him. It’s an officer called Berry who wears a pinched, serious expression. It loosens once he’s within a few steps of Richie, then he’s squinting through the dark, reaching for the flash light attached to his belt. He pulls it off and shines the light in Richie’s face. 

“Richie?” he asks. 

“Yes,” Richie replies. 

“Oh, dear lord,” Berry sighs. 

-

After Berry spoke to the owner of the house who had been upstairs in the bedroom the whole time sleeping, he gets into the driver's seat and joins Richie. 

Richie had been placed in the back of the patrol car almost instantly and was told to stay put. He’s sitting in the spot of a criminal. He can hardly find the energy to feel bad about it because he’s on drugs. 

Berry’s driving for about five minutes and sighs about three times before he says anything. 

“I’m not going to take you in,” he says it with a lot of something that sounds like disappointment. 

“Thanks,” Richie says.

“I’m going to take you home.” 

Then Richie feels a breeze blow through him that not even drugs can help conceal. He doesn’t say anything. 

Berry calls his father. 

He explains the situation too well, making sure to hide nothing. Not even the bit about the TV. He knows Berry's already doing him a solid by taking him home instead of to the station, but he wishes Berry could have cut him some slack. 

When they pull into Richie’s driveway, his dad is already on the porch, standing there with his arms crossed and the worst expression Richie’s ever seen. 

He slaunters up to the car and peers through the window of the back seat, directly at Richie. His face looks like it’s flaring, and it makes it hard for Richie to take in the right amount of air. 

The door is pulled open and Richie’s father is reaching for him. He grabs him by the neck of his shirt and drags him out of the car. 

“Go sit in the kitchen,” he says in a dangerous voice shoving Richie away from him and toward the house. Richie stumbles to catch his footing, but he obeys.

His father sticks around outside for a minute or two so that he can talk to Berry. When Richie gets inside of the house, he goes into the kitchen where he sits down at the table and stares at the pot on the stove. 

Then he hears the door open and close and he tenses up. 

-

Richie’s not going to lie, it hurts. 

He’s in his room, but he can’t keep still because it   
. It hurts and he feels bad about it.

He’s still on drugs, and maybe if he wasn’t he wouldn’t have climbed out of his window and wandered around the neighbourhood until he stumbled over to Eddie’s house. 

But that’s what happened.

The cold air makes his skin feel better. 

He finds Eddie’s window and slides it up. He uses the sill to hoist himself up and bites back a wince as he pulls himself through. 

He tumbles to the floor and can’t help but let out a little yelp as he touches down on the carpet. There’s the sound of some rustling and then the click of a lamp flipping on. Richie looks up from the floor and finds Eddie sat up in his bed with his hand still on the lamp. 

“Richie?” he says groggily before his tone changes lanes and hardens up. “What the fuck are you doing?” 

“Eddie.” Richie says, but it almost comes out as a whimper. He gets up and goes over to the bed.

“Are you high?” Eddie asks, staring up into his face. 

Richie only looks right back down at him. 

Eddie watches him for a long time before he eventually looks Richie up and down. Suddenly, he reaches up and takes a fist full of Richie’s shirt. He pulls him down into a kiss. 

Richie’s happy that Eddie is kissing him, but he’s also tired and kind of just wants to lay down next to Eddie and go to sleep. 

He kisses him back but everything feels as if it's moving in slow motion. His hands go searching for Eddie’s shoulders so he can balance himself, but then Eddie’s trying to tug him down onto the bed. Richie falls on his knees and Eddie helps him into position where Richie’s straddling him. 

They kissed some more, and then Eddie tries to get Richie’s shirt off. 

Richie pulls back. 

“What?” Eddie asks a little breathlessly. He moves his hands around to Richie’s back and slips them beneath his shirt, laying them flat on his skin. 

Eddie’s hands are cold against the burns; it makes Richie squirm around uncomfortably.   
Eddie removes his hands from Richie’s back.

“Are you hurt?” Eddie asks, something like concern filling in the spaces that desire had left on his face.

Richie just breathes out. 

“I got arrested tonight,” he blurts. They stare at each other. 

“Why?” 

“I met some guys at a party and we broke into a house.” 

“Richie,” Eddie says like he's disappointed. 

Richie's arms hang down at his sides now, and he’s got a frown on his face. 

“Can I lay down?” he asks. Eddie looks at him like he’s stupid for asking. Richie carefully rolls off and drops down next to him, burying his face in Eddie’s favorite pillow. 

Eventually Richie starts feeling like he’s suffocating with his mouth pressed so tightly against the fabric of the pillow. He turns his head enough to where he can breathe properly. He also just so happens to catch Eddie watching him. They blink at each other and then Richie reaches out. He gets his arms awkwardly around Eddie's waist, but has no strength to pull him closer. Eddie compensates by scooting in himself. 

Eddie lies down on his back and Richie shuffles in so that his front is pushed up against Eddie’s side. He lays his head down on Eddie’s chest and squeezes him tightly, hiding his face in his shirt, trying to pretend everything doesn’t hurt. 

About a minute later Eddie’s fingers tangle in his hair and it’s such a gentle gesture that the affection from it alone is almost enough to make Richie cry. He buries his face even deeper and holds on even tighter. 

“Hey,” Eddie says softly. Richie isn’t able to talk. 

There’s a good amount of time that passes where nothing happens, but then Richie feels fingers on the back of his neck and then feels them again when Eddie lifts up the collar of his shirt. 

“Richie,” he breathes in a way Richie’s never heard before. “What happened?” 

There’s a lot of blisters down his back. His dad threw the water when Richie had his back turned.

Richie just breathes. 

“It’s fine.” 

“Richie, it looks really serious.” Eddie says. He starts moving under Richie like he’s trying to sit up. Richie keeps him pinned down. 

“I already took a cold shower.” 

“At least let me put something on it.” 

“I’m too tired.” 

“Richie, please.” 

Richie eventually gives in. A few minutes later, Eddie is helping him out of bed and quietly pulling him through the hallway and into the bathroom. Richie sits down on the toilet seat and stares at the pattern engraved in the tile laid across the floor. He swears it’s moving. 

Eddie closes the door, locks it, then reaches into the cabinet across from the sink and pulls out a couple tubes of ointment and some bandages. Richie notices that Eddie’s collection of medical supplies probably exceeds what is considered a normal amount for a two person household. 

Richie hiccups and Eddie grips the bottom of his shirt as he starts to lift it up over his head. 

Richie complies and raises his arms, allowing Eddie to slip the shirt off of him. Richie does his best to ignore the burning as he watches his shirt float down to the floor. 

“Richie,” Eddie breathes. 

It looks bad, Richie knows it does. 

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” he says but his skin has been throbbing for the past two hours and he’s coming down off his high so it’s probably going to get worse. 

“What-” Eddie starts to say but cuts himself off to squirt something onto his fingers. He pushes on Richie’s shoulder to angle him properly before he starts to work the lotion into Richie’s skin. Richie flinches under his touch, but he doesn’t make a sound; not even when his eyes start to gloss over.

His breathing is rigid and he imagines this is what it would be like to sit through the world’s longest tattoo session.

“Was it-” Eddie starts again but he can’t seem to say it. Richie doesn’t want him to.

“It’s fine,” Richie repeats. 

“You don’t deserve that.” Eddie says instead and there’s something horrible in his voice; something that makes Richie close his eyes. 

“I messed up,” Richie replies, but it sounds like someone has stepped on his throat. 

“That doesn’t- Richie, these burns are bad.” 

Richie just shakes his head. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

So they don’t talk about it.

When they’re back in bed, Eddie holds Richie all night and pretends not to notice how tight Richie holds him back.


	19. Richie

The next few days are rough. Richie has a hard time pretending that they aren’t. 

There are complications introduced to him in which he never thought would be a problem in his everyday life. Like sitting. Who knew finding a comfortable position while sitting down in a chair or on a bench or in a car could prove to be such a difficult challenge; he sure didn’t. 

And then there’s sleeping. He doesn’t even want to think about the countless hours he’s spent tossing and turning trying to find one of those rare sweet spots that don’t make his body ache. 

It’s been rough. 

But Eddie’s been around to help him out. 

Except he still hasn’t stopped looking sad.

And Richie has come to the conclusion that it is even worse than when he was mad.

It’s very clear that Eddie feels sorry for him. And it’s clear that Eddie knows exactly how Richie got the burns on his back and for some reason it’s given him this obligation to try and make Richie feel better.

It’s almost as if Eddie’s done a complete one-eighty from how he was acting just a couple of days ago. He’s gone from cold and distant to overly affectionate and clingy in a matter of hours.

And surprisingly, it’s really turning Richie off. 

Any spare time Richie has between classes, Eddie’s there, asking him how he is. Any day he isn’t working, Eddie’s there, asking him to come over. Eddie tries to be discreet about it but Richie can still hear the apprehension through the ‘It’s cold today, how are you feeling?’ or the ‘this exams gonna kick my ass, wanna come over and help me study?’

Richie tries not to be bothered by it. 

It’s a Thursday and they’re in Richie’s truck heading over to Richie’s house. 

Eddie’s been staring out the window. 

“That’s the third one today,” Eddie says. He’s talking about the dead deer on the side of the road. Every time he sees one he calls it out.

“Tis the season.” Richie says. 

“Poor guys.” 

“Fuckers deserve it.” 

They eventually arrive at Richie’s house and upon entering Richie’s disaster of a room, it dawns on him what a slob he is. Feeling slightly embarrassed, he starts to pick up the rug of dirty laundry laying all over the floor.

After the collection of laundry grows heavy in his arms, he bunches together and drops it off into an empty corner. It’s not really a strategy that should be considered as ‘cleaning’ but it does make the room look a bit better.

Eddie watches him for a minute but soon goes over to sit down at Richie’s desk. He takes the liberty of thumbing through the papers scattered across its surface.

“Can I open these?” Eddie asks. Richie’s in the middle of throwing away the pile of trash that’s collected on his night side table. He glances over to see Eddie holding up his college acceptance letters. 

Richie shrugs and says, “I don’t care.” 

Eddie opens them and Richie continues to clean his room. 

“You got into Nore,” he says, “and Pent.” 

“Cool,” Richie responds flatly. He hears Eddie sigh but neither of them says anything else.

A few seconds later, there’s a gentle tug on the bottom of Richie’s shirt. 

“Does it feel any better?” Eddie asks so quietly it’s almost a whisper. Richie goes still. 

Eddie hasn’t really addressed his injury directly, not since the night he saw it.

Richie swallows. 

“It’s fine,” Richie says. He looks over his shoulder to see Eddie staring up at him with the same concerned look on his face he’s been wearing all week. Richie really hates that. He looks down at the floor. 

“Do you want to stay at mine tonight?” Eddie asks. Richie shrugs like he’s not sure. 

And as if he’s trying to sway Richie, Eddie circles him so that they’re facing each other and puts a hand on Richie’s shoulder before sliding it up his neck and onto his face. Richie is quickly reminded of what Eddie can do to him.

“I’ll have to ask my dad.” he says, knowing that the answer is no and knowing that he’ll most likely go anyways. 

“Okay.” Eddie responds. 

Then Eddie kisses him. 

-

Richie doesn’t bother asking his dad because he knows that on top of the ‘no’ he will receive, there will be a look and a tone of voice that Richie doesn’t have the power to stomach. His dad falls asleep around ten anyways. Richie uses his window as an exit.

They hang out for a while and it’s late by the time they lay down for bed. Eddie’s spread across Richie’s chest with an arm cradled against Richie’s side when he starts to say “I was thinking…” then shifts so that his head is nuzzled under Richie’s chin. The silence on Richie’s behalf encourages him to continue. “Maybe you could go to Pent.” 

“What?” Richie asks.

“I mean it’s thirty minutes from Kinsley and- I don’t know maybe we could get an apartment somewhere in the middle or something.” 

Richie’s ability to comprehend seems to surpass the feeling of confusion by a couple of hundred miles. He’s rendered speechless for a few seconds as his brain tries to catch up.

Just a few days ago Eddie wouldn’t admit that they’re even a thing and now he’s thinking about living together? Richie’s failing to see where any of that makes sense.

“What- what are you talking about?” he asks and it comes out a little jagged. Eddie squirms under his arm and Richie loosens his grip. 

“I just thought it would be more convenient than living with a stranger. I know you’re unsure about what you want to do so it’d be smart to at least get the core classes out of the way- ” 

“I’m planning on commuting,” Richie says so sternly that it trips Eddie into silence.

It’s a silence so loud that Richie can practically hear the gears in Eddie’s head-turning as he struggles to come up with something to say. 

“But why?” 

Richie doesn’t respond. 

“You don’t deserve it,” Eddie says and Richie feels him huddle even closer into his side. Richie blinks and his blood suddenly feels hotter. “Any of it.”

“Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about.” Richie’s tone is heavy and he leaves very little room for an argument. 

There’s a sinking feeling that introduces itself in the center of Richie’s chest and he’s unsure of how to manage it. 

Eddie wasn’t to interested in Richie’s future until this kind of a problem presented itself and Richie really hates how it’s making him feel.

Eddie’s stillness makes him squirm.

“But you know-” Eddie starts, sounding small and unsure, “-you know that’s not okay, right?” 

Richie sits up and Eddie lets out a startled gasp as he slides from Richie’s chest and falls onto the bed. 

“You don’t get it- so just- will you just- please shut up the fuck up about it.” Richie says more like a statement and less like a question. 

Then he turns his head and gives Eddie this look. A look that he’s learned from his father. It’s the same look that never fails to make him cold. 

And just by the simple way Eddie’s expression wilts, Richie almost wants to take it back.

-

“You brainwashed Eddie,” Richie hears someone say from behind him.

He’s been staring through the glass of the library’s vending machine for the past five minutes and he’s finding it near impossible to decide between a reeses and a kitkat. Normally he’d go for the reese's, but right now, he’s just not sure. 

Richie doesn’t have to look to know that it’s Bill standing behind him. 

“I don’t know how you did it...but congrats,” he continues.

Richie doesn’t say anything. He knows whatever would come out would come out chopped and annoyed and Richie’s really not in the mood to fight with Bill. He’d rather not talk to him at all. 

Richie pulls a dollar from his back pocket and jams it into the machine. It spits it right back out. 

“Nothing?” Bill says in a taunting manner. Richie doesn’t even look over. He’s exercised his shunning abilities so much over the years that he’s confident he’s earned a master's in the art. He could disregard Bill’s entire existence for the rest of his life if he really wanted to.

Richie continues to ignore Bill and attempts to fatten out his dollar bill. He makes sure to smooth out the edges and rid it of its wrinkles before giving it another go. Still, it is rejected. Now he’s a little frustrated. 

“Okay okay,” Bill starts, he leans a shoulder against the vending machine so that it’s harder for Richie to avoid looking at him. “It’s just a habit to be a dick to you. I actually came over to ask for a truce.” 

In that moment Richie allows himself to look into Bill’s face and search for a sign that Bill may be trying to deceive him. He doesn’t really find anything. If he really wanted to, he could probably pick out the forced serenity behind Bill’s ‘friendly’ exterior, but other than that, Bill’s eyes are vacant. 

When Richie still doesn’t respond, Bill sighs. 

“I want to apologize. Maybe I shouldn’t have provoked you the other night.” 

Richie is surprised to hear Bill say that but he’d rather die than let it show on his face. He hasn’t known Bill to apologize for anything. Bill had provoked him but Richie’s the one who acted on it. 

“And maybe I shouldn’t have pushed you.” Richie says almost through his teeth. He’s unable to make eye contact so he looks down at the dollar in his hand. If Bill’s really asking him for a truce, he’s not going to be the asshole who rejects it. Truces make life easier. Bill breathes out through his nose and then there’s the sound of paper crinkling. 

Bill’s arm extends past Richie and Richie looks up just in time to see Bill pushing a dollar into the vending machine. It’s accepted and Bill punches a random button. Richie watches a reese's drop down into the bottom of the machine. 

Then Richie looks at him and Bill nods. 

“Doesn’t mean I want anything to do with you but Eddie’s my friend. I’ll tolerate you for him.” 

Richie just stares at him. 

“Good talk,” Bill says. He steps forward to pat Richie on the shoulder before he walks off. 

-

Richie and his dad aren’t talking at the moment. 

Usually, this would bother Richie to some extent, but he’s having troubling locating his exact feelings on the situation. And he finds that unsettling. 

It’s just plain weird being at home and having his dad bypass him in the hallway or the living room without even a glance. And how the guy hasn’t even attempted to conjure up something in the kitchen in over two weeks.

Richie’s been living off of the shitty convenience store sandwiches they sell at Mike’s, and those are only fresh on Tuesdays and Fridays. He still isn’t sure which he prefers; his father's cooking, or a sandwich that looks like it was zapped together in a lab.

He doesn’t think his father’s ever been so pissed at him. And Richie gets it. If there’s one thing Richie’s dad has tried to get through to him, it’s not to do drugs- couple that with an arrest and it’s no wonder he can’t even look in Richie’s direction. 

Beverly and Shannon are over for dinner. Richie hides out in his room until Beverly’s beating a fist on his door demanding him to let her in.

He cracks open the door. He’s not wearing pants. 

She looks down at his legs and asks, 

“Where’s your pants?” 

Richie shrugs. “On the floor somewhere.”

“You should probably put them on.” 

He doesn’t put up much of a fight when she pushes past him. 

Once in his room, Beverly glances around like she’s trying to find something to entertain herself. She sees that he has a sketchbook and a pencil laying out on top of his comforter. She goes over to sit on the brink of the bed and then she picks up the sketchbook. 

Maybe he still draws sometimes. 

“Don’t,” he warns but it’s not all that convincing. Richie goes over to her and reaches out to take the sketchbook away from her but she falls back onto his bed. Now facing the ceiling, she holds the sketchbook up in front of her face. 

 

“What am I looking at?” she asks, squinting up at the drawing, the bottom corner of the paper starts drooping downward. 

“It's a demonic farm.”

“Ohh, I can see that now. Wow.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Very trippy. I bet you’d be good at graphic design.” 

She tosses the sketchbook aside and promptly sits up. She crosses her legs and stares at him. 

“You look tired,” she says.

“Thanks,” he says.

He remembers he’s still not wearing any pants. He proceeds to walk around his room and lazily kick his shit around in search of his sweatpants. He finds them balled up in the corner next to the door. 

“So you’re hanging out will Bill now?” 

“So you’re stalking me?” Richie asks, dodging the question. His sweat pants are inside out so he pulls the legs out and then starts to climb into them. 

“No, but I have eyes and ears.” 

Richie pauses to look at her as if he was actually checking. 

“Guess you do,” he says. He tightens the two drawstrings dangling over his legs and then ties them together. 

By the time he looks at Beverly again, she’s about ready to burst. 

“I don’t get it,” she huffs. 

“What?” 

“Your obsession with Eddie.” 

Richie lets out a sigh so powerful that it could probably blow away a city. If one more person says something about Eddie he thinks he’s going to implode. 

“Like you’re actually willing to be around Bill ...because of Eddie.” 

“Yes okay! I’m fucking whipped- can everyone shut up about it?” Richie says breathlessly. 

He’s so tired of talking about it.

Beverly’s eyes get wide, “so you are fucking him?” 

Richie just looks at her. 

“Yes!” he exclaims, throwing his hands up, they stay in the air for a second before falling back to his sides with a clap. He lets out a little groan and turns away from her. 

“That’s so weird,” she says.

“Thanks.” 

“Does this mean you’re gay?” 

“No,” Richie wanders over to his desk and acts as if he actually cares about organizing the papers laying across it. He’s really just looking for something to do with his hands so he doesn’t rip his hair out.

“Is he the first guy you’ve had sex with?” 

“No.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Richie sighs again. He’s already been over this same round of questions with Quinton, he’d rather not go through them again. 

“Because it doesn’t fucking matter, Bev.” He lets his head lull over his shoulder. Then gives her a look that does a decent job of supporting the weight of his words. 

“It does matter. Now there’s a bigger chance of us fucking the same guy.” 

“It’s too late to worry about that.” Richie isn’t sure if he meant to say that but it’s out and now Beverly’s staring at him. 

“What?” she says, leaning forward as if it will help her understand him better. “Who did you fuck?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

“It sure as fuck does and you will tell me or I’ll-I’ll…I’ll tell your dad.” 

The hardness that normally seals Richie’s expression in, is slapped out of place. 

“That’s not funny.” 

“I’m not joking.” 

The eye contact Beverly pokes him with is too intense for her not to see that he’s shaken. Regardless, she doesn’t back down. 

“Luciano,” he mutters eventually.

She stares at him.

She goes to open her mouth, but then she closes it. 

“Why the fuck am I actually surprised?” she says, looking down to where her skirt dips in between her thighs. 

“He doesn’t want anyone to know.” 

“Yeah I wouldn’t want anyone to know I was fucking you either,” Beverly says, her voice sounding kind of nasty. She then stands up and Richie notices that she looks angry. 

“You’re mad? Why the fuck are you mad?”

“Why wouldn’t I be mad?” She says, looking at him as if he’s an actual idiot. “It’s the same as if- I fucked Eddie or something!” 

Richie’s eyes widen and then he scoffs. 

“Are you fucking high? That’s not the same at all.” 

“Sure.” Beverly crosses her arms and then starts heading for the door. 

“Beverly,” Richie calls out her name as if it’s a warning, but he isn’t sure how to follow up. She pauses with her arm outstretched, her hand halfway towards the doorknob. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

She sighs and turns back around. 

“I’m just- do you even care about me at all?” 

Richie just stares at her, not really understanding why she would ask that. 

“Of course I do.” he says. 

“Like did it ever cross your mind that I could possibly like Luciano and that maybe sleeping with him wasn’t the healthiest thing for our friendship.” 

“Uhhh,” he starts, because sure, it may have crossed his mind once or twice but he never actually put any thought in it, “no?” 

Beverly looks at him like he’s the biggest idiot she’s ever seen. 

“Seriously?” 

“Well to be honest Luciano’s gay and I didn’t think you were capable of liking someone.” 

“Gee thanks.”

Richie sighs, “But really, what’s your problem? I get you have daddy issues or whatever but so does everyone I’ve ever met.” 

“You’re changing the subject.” 

“So? The subject was stale.” 

“Y  
really want to talk about daddy issues, Richie?” The way Beverly says it and the way her eyes slit make it seem like she knows something. There’s a hiccup in Richie’s chest that makes him feel kind of weird. 

Richie doesn’t answer her. The air around them shifts and Richie wonders if Beverly can feel it too. 

“Every time we have a conversation, it goes absolutely nowhere, you ever notice that?” she asks.

Richie lets out a stiff huff. 

“Yeah, I have.” 

“I forgive you for sleeping with Luciano,” she says.

“Uh thanks.” 

“I think we need to stop fighting with each other, for good.”

“Bev, you’re the one always picking fights,” he says. 

“Richie-” she starts to say already sounding angry, but she stops herself and takes a deep breath in. “I mean- okay- thank you for being honest.” 

“Wow, really?” 

She’s already looking pissed off again. 

“Yes, you’re-” now she’s looking embarrassed, “you’re my only real friend. I guess I can make more of an effort to maintain our friendship if you do.” 

Richie’s half-smiling now and Beverly’s cheeks are a little red. 

“Sure, if you promise to stop attacking me for everything then I’ll uh- not have sex with Lucianom- I guess.” 

Beverly narrows her eyes at him and purses her lips. Her expression eventually softens and she shakes her head and sighs.

“Deal.”

-

Things with Eddie have been- interesting- in recent weeks. 

Eddie’s been more quiet than usual and Richie isn’t sure how he’s supposed to take it. He isn’t sure if Eddie’s been thinking about him and his ‘issues’ or if he’s got his own shit to figure out. They don’t talk enough. Richie isn’t sure where they stand. 

But what Richie does know is that when they’re in bed, Eddie’s hold on him keeps getting tighter and when they kiss, something about it is becoming all too consuming. Somehow everything's feeling realer. 

Richie can’t help but notice how the space between them has dissipated to the point where Richie can still feel Eddie even when he’s not in the room. Eddie is now apart of his everyday life and there is no way to deny that. They do a lot of shit together. Most of the shit they do, they do it together. And yet, there’s still a lack of communication that neither of them seems to want to fix.

Bill calls Richie off of Eddie’s phone.

Richie picks up on the second ring only because it’s Eddie’s name coming up on the screen. 

“You need to come get your boyfriend.” Bill’s voice is gruff and he sounds like he’s straining. 

“What?” Richie says because he’s a little tired and he’s unable to assign the voice to a name.

“He’s drunk and he can’t stay here.” 

Richie hadn’t known Eddie was going to a party tonight, which would be fine, but when Bill gives him the address and actually hesitates before telling him it’s “Noah’s house,” then it doesn’t feel so fine anymore. 

“Why can’t he stay?” Richie asks, feeling a sense of betrayal settle next to the disappointment festering in his chest. 

“Doesn’t want to.” Bill says shortly, his patience seeming to run thinner by the second. 

“I’m busy.” Richie responds. 

“Richie come on- he’s- he’s asking for you.” 

Richie breathes through his nose. He doesn’t get how he can feel so pissed off and so obligated to fulfill Eddie’s wishes at the same time. 

“Fine,” he says and hangs up. He hopes that one day he’ll quit being such a little bitch.

It’s already one in the morning, meaning his dad is dead asleep. He’s not too worried about being found sneaking out. 

There’s a dim lamp post positioned at the end of his driveway. It’s shining just enough light on his truck so he’s able to see the rust forming on the rim of his door. He sighs and stares at it.

He’s not sure when he started thinking of the truck as his and not his father’s. 

It’s a twenty-minute drive and when Richie arrives, he almost leaves instantly. 

Eddie’s standing in the front yard, throwing up in the grass. Bill’s on his right, looking away from the spew of vomit as it hits the ground and Noah’s on his left, with a comforting hand on the small of his back. 

Richie does his best to keep the rumble of red off his shoulders as he gets out of his truck and makes his way over to them. 

“He got too drunk too fast,” Bill says, watching Richie approach them. 

Richie’s arms are crossed and when he reaches a certain distance, he stops and doesn’t come any closer. He stares at Noah’s hand as he rubs small circles in between Eddie’s shoulder blades. 

After Eddie is done heaving up all the contents in his stomach, he remains hunched over, staring at his shoes, for a few more seconds. Eventually, he straightens up, swaying as he does so. And when his gaze falls on Richie, the smile that spreads across his face is almost- dreamlike. 

“Richie,” he coos, breaking away from Noah’s touch and coming towards Richie like he’s a toddler running towards his mother. He comes to a stop when their faces are about half a foot apart and just stares up at Richie as if he’s looking at the moon. The dopey grin on his face really starts to tickle Richie’s insides but he manages to keep a straight face. 

When Richie’s stoic exterior fails to lighten, Eddie steps forward so that their chests touch and he’s able to wrap his arms around Richie’s waist with ease. Richie just sighs. He doesn’t hug him back, instead, he looks at Bill. 

“We good to go?” 

“Yeah, thanks,” Bill says, nodding at him. Richie nods in return and then unconsciously glances in Noah’s direction. He’s staring at them.

Richie looks down at the top of Eddie’s head and observes the way the moon makes Eddie’s hair look. Then he decidedly pries Eddie’s arms off of him and drags him back to the truck. 

On the drive back home, Eddie starts to pout. 

“You’re mad,” his words aren’t horribly slurred but they do blur into each other. Richie doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eddie fucked up aside from when they were in middle school. 

“I’m not,” Richie says, but it’s a lie. He can still feel that sting of resentment looming over him.

“I can tell when you’re mad.” Eddie declares.

Richie tries to ignore how Eddie’s eyes are burning into the side of his face. 

“I can tell when you’re happy and when you’re sad and jealous- I know everything- even when it’s not on your face.” There’s a couple of hiccups in Eddie’s little speech but otherwise, he says it strongly.

“You’re drunk,” Richie mumbles. 

“Yeah, I am.” Eddie says it like he’s proud. “And you’re mad that I was at Noah’s. It’s exactly why I didn't tell you.” 

“It’s not like I would have stopped you from going. You can do whatever the fuck you want, Eddie. I don’t care.” 

Eddie’s quiet for a second. 

“You’re lying,” he says. “I can tell when you’re lying too.” 

Richie just shakes his head and continues to stare ahead, tightening his grip on the wheel. 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

“Does matter. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” 

“You’re just drunk.” 

“I’m not even that drunk,” Eddie argues at a slightly more convincing angle, his words taking on more clarity. 

“You were just throwing up everywhere.” 

“Yeah and that shit killed my buzz.”

“Whatever.” 

There’s a long drag of silence that can’t even be helped by the music streaming out of the speakers near their feet. The music only seems to sit underneath the tension. Eddie’s fidgeting like a mad man.

“You know that- you know I don’t care about Noah.” Eddie starts, he takes a deep breath in and blows it out. “I only care about you,” he finishes in a voice so different from anything Richie’s ever heard from him.

Richie doesn’t respond. He just shakes his head as if he’s trying to shake the heat rising up to his cheeks. 

“I think about you all the time." Eddie continues, his voice dripping all over Richie's sanity. 

“Eddie,” Richie says like it’s a warning. 

“I think about you saying my name, all the time.” 

“Don’t,” Richie says because he’s never heard Eddie talk like that and he’ll either overthink it or under think it and Eddie’s just drunk. 

“Sometimes I want to be so close to you that I wish your skin would just- grow onto mine- or something. And sometimes- I want you to just- devour me and- just fucking own me- like shit Richie.” 

“W-what?” he stutters, suddenly overwhelmed. Richie has to tighten his hands on the steering wheel and clench his jaw to refrain from crashing into a tree.

“You think I’ve changed- but I’m still the biggest pussy in the world because I don’t know how to tell you how much I want you.” 

Richie’s breathing deepens and he’s having a hard time swallowing what Eddie’s telling him. 

It doesn’t make sense. 

Ten minutes later, he pulls into his driveway and rashly gets out of the truck. He circles around to Eddie’s side, pops the door open, grabs him by the wrist and yanks him through yard, then through the house and all the way up into his room. 

Once his bedroom door closes behind them, he goes to turn around but before he has the chance to do so, Eddie’s already on him. Eddie circles his arms around Richie’s shoulders and pushes his front into the curve of Richie’s back, burying his cheek between Richie’s shoulder blades. 

Then Eddie leans in closer, pushing Richie into the door. He lifts his cheek from Richie’s back and rises higher onto his toes. He presses his lips to the nape of Richie’s neck and the simple action alone is enough to have Richie shuttering. Eddie buries his nose into Richie’s curls

“Eddie-” Richie almost moans. He restrains from flipping their positions and caging Eddie in just so he can have his way. But he wants Eddie to show him how he’s feeling.

Eddie’s hands slide down to the hem of Richie’s shirt and slip beneath it. Then they slide back up again, kneading at his skin in a way that gets Richie’s insides turning. He’s already half-hard when he knocks himself against the door, searching for friction anywhere he can find it.

Eddie frees one of his hands so that he can grab Richie by the jaw and jerk his head sideways into a kiss. Eddie bites into him while he attempts to find a better angle, searching for access to a deeper taste. They make out like that until it isn’t enough and Eddie’s whirling Richie around by his shoulders and slamming his back into the door. 

“Need you-” Eddie murmurs hotly into Richie’s mouth. Richie takes Eddie in his arms and drops his hands to his ass, using the grip to pull him in even closer. Eddie’s leg slips between Richie’s thighs as he pushes up into him. And Richie's lips end up smeared from the corner of Eddie’s mouth down to his jaw, pushing back down into him. 

“Fuck-” Richie says brokenly. 

They undress each other and somehow land successfully on the bed. 

Eddie’s on top of Richie when he says, “You don’t even know-” he’s panting, “how bad I need you.” 

“Eddie,” Richie says like there’s gravel in his throat. He jerking up into him, knowing he’s lost control and not really caring about it. 

What really gets to Richie has to be the water works. After a while, he can’t help but notice that Eddie’s cheeks are wet and that his mouth is watering all while his hold on Richie grows tight and unwavering. He looks completely spent. As if he’s so overwhelmed his body has no other choice but to come up with other ways of handling it. Richie doesn't think anything has turned him on more.

When Eddie comes, he hides a cry in the crook of Richie’s neck and slides his hands up and down Richie’s back as if he’s searching for a grip. Richie helps him through the aftershocks all while inching closer to the edge himself. He comes shaking and shuttering under Eddie, clutching onto his waist, moving his hips unsteadily against him.

They collapse into each other, both layered in sweat, both panting and grabbing for one another. Eddie’s head falls on Richie’s chest and their legs mat together. Eddie presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss to Richie’s shoulder and then hums sweetly against his skin. 

“I’m sorry.” Eddie says. 

“What?” 

“For not being clear with you.” Eddie becomes heavier as he presses down into Richie, searching for closeness. “I want you, okay?” he whispers, sounding more sober than he has the entire night. 

Richie’s arm tightens around Eddie's back as he breathes out unevenly. He wishes he could just hear what Eddie’s saying. 

“You feel sorry for me, don’t you?” 

It’s only a few words but they build walls of tension. 

Eddie doesn’t say anything for a while, he just keeps holding onto Richie, refusing to let up. 

“Is that really what you think?” Eddie sounds more hurt than anything. Richie swallows. 

“You didn’t- you changed- after-” Richie doesn’t want to talk about that, but he does want relay what’s in his head. He wants Eddie to understand that maybe his feelings aren’t what he thinks they are. 

“Maybe things did change- and maybe I do have sympathy- but Richie- I feel like that because of the way I care about you. I want you to be safe-” There’s a shake in Eddie’s voice that Richie can’t ignore.

“Eddie,” Richie murmurs softly, running a hand up and down Eddie’s back as he tries to steady the ache in his chest. He isn’t really sure how to interpret Eddie’s feelings. He’s undoubtly having trouble comprehending the gentle words being said to him. But there is a reality in the way Eddie’s clinging to him and he can’t pretend that there’s not.

“I don’t know how you can think I don’t care about you. It’s embarrassing- the way you make me feel.” Eddie’s sniffling, he rubs his face into Richie’s chest. 

That doesn’t make any sense. Is Richie fucking blind or something?

“You know- I don’t just sleep with people. “ he says, “I’ve only been with one other person like this.” 

Richie tenses up then. 

 

Richie’s shocked. Eddie had been so forward, so confident. Richie had assumed they were in the same boat when it came to sex. But maybe it was a front. Maybe Richie hadn’t paid close enough attention. 

“Eddie-” he says weakly. He hadn’t known it was like that. He can already feel his perspective start to shift.

“I knew you slept around before we ever even started talking so I didn’t want to make it into a big deal or anything. I wasn’t completely sure what it meant to you at the time.” 

“Jesus- Eddie.” Richie’s breathing is erratic and he can feel his blood running hot under his skin. 

“I mean I knew you had a thing for me but I still just wasn’t sure- considering our past. But being with you- that first time- really meant a lot to me.”

“It meant a lot to me too.” 

Eddie’s breath sweeps across Richie’s collar bone as he lifts his head to look into Richie’s face. Richie stares back, truly seeing Eddie for what feels like the first time, tear-streaked and open. The sensation of Eddie pit against him, Eddie caring for him, needing him, hits somewhere deeps and it’s almost enough to break him down into the simple atoms that make him up. 

Eventually, Eddie leans in and kisses Richie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that it's been so long but a bitch got fucked up and was not in the mood to be reading about romance in any form. even if i wrote it. lesson learned kids: boys fucking suck!
> 
> also this chapter was the fucking worst to edit and i still hate it so please don't throw rocks at me. thanks xoxox - gaby


	20. Richie

Mrs. Venture asks Richie to stick around after class on Tuesday because she has a few things to give him. 

Richie doesn’t ask Eddie to wait for him, he just kind of does. 

Mrs. Venture drops a pile of Richie’s past art projects onto the desk in front of him. He stares down at them.

“Those three made it into art shows,” she says, wasting her time searching his face for something that just isn’t there. 

“Cool,” Richie says before he swings his bag onto the desk and starts to haphazardly shovel the projects into its open mouth. Mrs.Ventures sighs and turns away from him. 

Eddie only lingers nearby and watches them. At some point, after Richie zips his bag closed and straps it over his back, he goes over to meet him.

Richie briefly touches their hands together as they leave the room. It’s a small gesture that Richie does just because he can. 

The hallway is mostly deserted except for a few of their peer’s rounding a corner.

Oh- and there's Luciano- marching straight towards them with the look of vengeance on his face. 

Richie takes a deep breath in and doesn’t even realize he’s stepped in front of Eddie until he’s already standing there, in front of Eddie. 

“What the fuck, Richie.” Luciano’s voice is a harsh whisper. It gives Richie chills.

“Hey,” he says calmly, wishing he didn’t already know the reason why Luciano’s standing here in front of them wearing an expression as if Richie had just slapped him across the face. Richie swallows and takes another step forward. 

“You- why would you tell her that?” Luciano’s initial anger takes a backseat as the sound of hurt infiltrates his voice. It causes Richie’s gut twist. He instantly curses Beverly with something awful. She could find work as a parachute with such a huge, flapping mouth like that.

“I didn’t mean too,” Richie says, but truthfully, he knew what he was saying when he said it and in the moment he hadn’t even felt bad about it. However, right about now, he’d like to go back in time and kick himself in the head. 

“I-I,” Luciano’s stuck on words. His glance drifts between Eddie and Richie and as it does so, his expression flares and his cheeks grow red. “Fuck Richie- fuck you.” 

“I’m sorry,” Richie says. 

Luciano had come here to confront him without so much of a plan. Richie can tell he’s running on impulse from the way he’s struggling to come up with what to say. And from how his feelings are so direct that they’re plastered onto every inch of his face. It’s very obvious Luciano’s had no time to settle into them. 

Richie wishes there was a way he could comfort him. 

“Don’t ever talk to me again.” 

Richie doesn’t respond to that one. 

Then Luciano takes off, breaking through the wall he and Eddie have formed. He squares Richie’s shoulder with his own in the process and Richie stumbles back slightly. 

“I’m sorry,” Richie says again but Luciano ignores him and Richie’s left watching him disappear around the corner. 

“What the hell was that?” Eddie says once they’ve stood there in silence for a few extra long seconds. 

Richie’s brain has gone a bit haywire and he barely registers that Eddie’s asked him a question until he notices the curious gaze cast towards him. 

“Uh.” Richie says just as the memory of Eddie holding onto him whispering ‘I’ve only been with one other person like this’ hits, and he’s overwhelmed with embarrassment. Eddie probably has no clue how bad he actually was. 

“You can tell me,” Eddie says encouragingly, stepping into Richie’s space and reaching over to take his hand. 

“You-” Richie breathes, he looks anywhere but Eddie’s face, “you don’t want to know.” 

Eddie watches him intently for a few slow heartbeats before dropping his hand.

“Okay,” Eddie says softly. 

Then they’re in Richie’s truck, heading towards Eddie’s house and Richie finds that he can’t stand the quiet. 

“Are you mad?” he asks shyly. He’s still not good at reading Eddie. And now he knows he’s even worse at it than he originally thought. It makes him unsure about a lot of things and he’ll probably continue to tiptoe and second-guess himself until he’s got a better handle on it. But he’s not exactly sure how long that’s going to take.

In the corner of Richie’s eye, he sees Eddie turn his head to look at him. 

“No, I’m not mad. I just want you to feel like you can tell me things.” Eddie explains.

Richie thinks that makes sense.

“I do tell you things.” 

“Yeah- but,” Eddie cuts himself off like he’s not sure of what to say. “You never talk about how you’re feeling. I want you to know that you can talk about it- with me. If you want.” 

Richie’s never been in a relationship before. Eddie definitely has, so there’s a gap in experience a lot wider than Richie would prefer. 

He’s going to wonder if he’s doing something wrong- a lot- probably. And maybe when Eddie tells him stuff like this it means he’s trying to tell him that he’s doing something wrong. He wonders if Eddie’s past boyfriends knew how to understand him better. If they knew what to say when he told them he’d listen or knew what to give when he asked. Richie’s scared he won’t be able to do that. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“Why are you apologizing?” Eddie sounds a little surprised. 

“I don’t know how to be in a relationship.” 

Eddie laughs at that. 

“Are we in a relationship?” he asks and even though his tone is light, almost joking, Richie freezes up because- are they?

“I- are we?” Richie asks a little shakily. 

“You never asked me to be your boyfriend.” 

“Oh,” Richie responds. 

There’s a beat of silence and then, 

“Will you be my boyfriend?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Cool.” 

-

Quinton and Ben go on a double date with some twins they met in a Walmart parking lot at two am.

They had been in a Walmart parking lot at two am simply because they had gotten stoned and wanted some ice cream. 

At the same time Ben was backing his car out of its parking spot in a Walmart parking lot at two am, there was a shopping cart being pushed directly in front of his bumper. He backed over the shopping cart. 

The shopping cart was being occupied by a couple of twin girls. The girls were cool about it- actually, they were more than cool about it- they had actually found it funny. Probably because they were also stoned. Quinton had expressed that it was a -had to have been there- moment. 

So Richie helps Quinton pick out a nice shirt and hunt down a pair of jeans that don’t possess a hole in the crotch. It’s more difficult than he originally anticipated. Quinton hasn’t bought a new pair of jeans in three years. 

The date goes swimmingly. After dinner, Quinton takes them up to a bridge where they take turns spray painting its pillars. Quinton illustrates his date and she doesn’t even get offended that the painting slightly resembles a troll. 

“That’s why I think she’s the one,” Quinton says. 

“I sure hope so.” Richie nods at him. He wants nothing more than for Quinton to be happy. 

Eddie meets the girls first. He tells Richie they are blonde, pretty and they laugh at everything anyone says. Richie thinks those are all decent qualities to have. 

Richie meets them after Quinton’s fourth date with the girl and by then he’s already proclaiming his love for her. 

“Angie’s the one with the scar on her chin and I’m the one with flawless skin.” The twin called May explains, trying to make it easier for Richie to be able to distinguish between the two of them. May then points a finger at the thin scar running from her sisters bottom lip to half-way down her chin. Angie slaps her hand away and scowls. 

“Flawless?” she tuts.

Richie looks between the two of them them. They’re absolutely identical. 

“Or you can tell us apart by May’s crooked layers and my perfect luscious locks.” 

“Or by the disgusting stained tops Angie wears,” May fires back. 

“Or because May’s a dumb bitch.” 

“You’re the dumb bitch!” Angie lays into her. 

“You’re both dumb bitches,” Quinton says, returning from his kitchen with a glass of water in his hand. He puts the water on the coffee table and sits down next to May, slinging his arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his chest. It’s strange seeing Quinton interact with another human like that. It unconsciously makes Richie bring Eddie closer. 

“I think we all know that Eddie’s the dumbest bitch in this room,” Ben says hiking up an eyebrow and glancing in Eddie’s direction. 

“What did I do?” 

“Don’t act like you don’t know. You traded me for that.” Ben says pointing at Richie. 

“That is not true,” Eddie says. He lays a palm flat on Richie’s bicep. 

“Doesn’t matter, it’s old news, I’ve got Angie now.” 

“This is getting too real.” Quinton mumbles. 

“So are we going to play or not?” May asks, holding up her little dog player piece. Monopoly has been set up on the coffee table for a good thirty minutes and so far no one has made a move to start the game. 

“I suppose.” Quinton huffs. Quinton hates monopoly, and for good reason, he’s shit at it. Richie isn’t sure how well he’s going to fare majoring in business. 

Halfway through the game, Ben throws a plastic house at Richie; Eddie scooches all the way to the end of the couch in a rally of protest while Quinton pledges a vow of silence against him. Richie’s always dominated at monopoly. 

They don’t make it to the end but if they did, Richie would have won. 

It was a good night. 

-

Beverly apologizes to Richie before he has a chance to ignore her out of resilience. 

“I didn’t mean to make him upset, I was just trying to let him know that I’m here for him and that I’m not going to tell anyone.” 

“You should have just kept your mouth shut.” 

“I know that now- I just- didn’t expect him to react like that.” 

“It’s not a topic you can just randomly bring up.” 

“Okay, okay,” Beverly says. 

Richie sighs. 

The next day, he runs into Luciano and when Luciano tries to dodge him without even a glace, Richie reaches out and grabs his arm. 

“Don’t touch me,” Luciano murmurs weakly, looking up into Richie’s steady gaze. Luciano looks back down again. 

“I really am sorry.” Richie says in the most sincere way he can, “I should have never said anything. It was wrong- it was so wrong.” 

“Why-” Luciano’s turns his face away to try and hide whatever's spilling out across it. But Richie can hear it in his voice. Luciano rips his arm back, “don’t act like you care.” 

“I do care,” Richie says earnestly. 

Luciano’s about to walk away when Richie says, “I hope it all works out for you.” 

Luciano pauses for a second because it sounds like a goodbye and goodbyes are always sad no matter who they’re from. 

Luciano turns his head just enough to nod at Richie and then he walks away. 

Richie’s left feeling bad. 

-

When Rae’s daughter walks into Mike’s, Richie has to do a double-take because she’s about two feet taller than when he last saw him. 

“Hi Richie,” she says, sounding more like a person and less like a child. 

“Hey, it’s been a while. How have you been?” he asks. 

She smiles at him, “Pretty good now that summer's almost here.” 

“I’m with you,” he says, “you’re a high schooler next year, right?” 

“Yep,” she says, leaning her elbows on the counter. 

“Excited?” 

“Nope.” 

“I don’t blame you." Richie finishes wiping down the register, he throws the rag into the drawer and stares at the computer screen, seeing it in a whole new light, a light where it’s not covered in a layer of dust. 

“My dad here?” 

“Yeah, he’s in the back.” Richie says before turning his head slightly and shouting, “Rae!” 

Rae emerges from the breakroom a few minutes later with a groggy look in his eyes. Richie can tell he’s been napping. 

“Rosie,” he gasps, immediately going to unlatch the gate. He walks around to the front of the counter and envelopes her in a giant hug. Richie doesn’t think he’s ever seen a happier expression on his face. 

It makes his heart swell a little.

Rae pats her on the head and pulls her back by the shoulders to look down into her face. He’s still smiling when he says, 

“What are you doing here?” 

Now Rosie starts looking a little embarrassed. She glances over at Richie before committing to her father’s gaze and shrugging. 

“Thought I could get a free candy bar.” 

“Sure, sure.” Rae says eagerly, “take as many as you want.” 

Technically there is no employee discount, but Rae’s been doing what he wants for years and Richie’s not the one to give a fuck about the rules. 

Rae reaches over the counter, past Richie, towards the plastic bags, but he doesn’t quite reach so Richie helps him out by handing him one. Rae nods a thanks and snaps open the bag before he offers it over to Rosie. The smile she’s wearing fills her cheeks out as she takes it from him. They go over to the snack aisle and stand around talking for a good hour and a half. 

Richie tries not to eavesdrop but he’s a curious person. 

When Rosie leaves, Rae’s on cloud nine for the next couple hours. It’s a good look on him. 

-

Eddie begs Richie to accompany him to Kinsley for a campus tour and Richie only agrees because he wants to show Eddie that he can be a good boyfriend. 

But halfway through the three-hour car drive, it dawns on Richie just how much he’s dreading their arrival. And when they get there, he asks if he can sit in the truck and wait. 

Eddie stares at him.

“Why?” 

Richie shrugs because he doesn’t want to tell Eddie that being on a college campus is only going to make him depressed. Especially this one. They still haven’t talked about what’s going to happen when Eddie moves up here. 

Eddie keeps on staring until Richie is forced to remember that Eddie’s a big believer in communication. He’s going to have to get better at that. 

“Um,” he says, bringing a hand up to sweep a few curls from his face. He’s found that it’s hard to put that kind of stuff into words when he’s become so accustomed to saying nothing at all. It’s almost embarrassing. “It makes me sad.” 

It is embarrassing. 

Eddie leans back in his seat and looks into his lap like he’s thinking. 

“You can’t just hide from this Richie. You’re going to have to make a decision at some point. I think it will be nice for you to have some exposure to what a college campus is actually like.” 

Richie blinks at him. 

“Besides, if it gets too scary you can always hold my hand,” Eddie says teasingly. It makes Richie smile a little. 

Eventually, he agrees to get out of the car. 

The campus is big and the people in their tour group seem okay. 

Although, Richie was glared at for accidentally cutting a guy in line when they were collecting their visitor passes. Personally, he didn’t think it was that big of a deal. The evil-eyed guy seemed to think it was. 

Eddie’s excited the whole time and his eyes are round and his cheeks are pink. He looks around the place like he’s trying to make sure not even a pebble slips by unnoticed. Richie’s glad he came. He likes seeing Eddie like this.

Their tour guide encourages them to talk to each other. She tells them it’s important to make at least one friend during your first semester. Everything is always easier when you have a friend. 

“I’m shit at making friends,” Eddie says, leaning slightly into Richie’s side. Richie opens his mouth to respond but a small brown girl beats him to it. 

“Me too, I’m Abigail,” she says with a smile and Richie thinks she has the whitest teeth he'd ever seen. 

“Eddie,” Eddie says, smiling back. Richie thinks about how handshakes don’t exist anymore. 

Abigail’s a talker so Richie has a hard time believing she has any difficulty making friends. She drones on and on about her major, where she’ll go after graduation, what her husband will look like and how she’ll name her children Monica and Xander. Richie learns there is nothing in her life that she doesn’t already have planned out. 

Eddie seems to find her entertaining. 

Richie listens to their conversation in silence until Abigail turns to him and asks him for his entire life itinerary. 

“Not sure,” he simply says. Eddie shoots him a look that is clearly asking for an elaboration but Richie’s just not in the mood. Eddie sighs and bumps into Richie’s hip. 

“He’s isn’t actually enrolled here. He’s thinking about Pent.” Eddie explains, filling in the spaces that Richie had left open. Richie understands that Eddie only mentions Pent to put an end to the conversation. 

At the end of the tour, Richie’s feet kind of hurt and he’s hungry. Abigail and Eddie exchange phone numbers and then the crowd disperses. 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Eddie asks, running his fingers up Richie’s arm. He shrugs. 

“Guess not.” 

Instead of driving another three hours home, they book a hotel. Richie’s only ever stayed in a hotel twice and both times were with his father. He imagines that staying in a hotel with Eddie will be a much more pleasurable experience. 

As soon as they walk into their suite, Richie’s gaze falls onto the bed and he instantly pictures Eddie bent over it. 

He glances over at Eddie who drops his bag onto the floor and does a short pace around the room. Richie stares at him, hoping Eddie will pick up what he’s shelling out. 

But Eddie seems a little distracted. He eventually sits down on the bed, unzips his bag and pulls out a binder he’d gotten after the tour. He starts reading over the papers inside it as Richie plops down next to him. He throws himself onto his back and stares up at the ceiling for a few seconds before averting his gaze back to Eddie. Eddie’s hunched over in concentration, completely zoned out. 

Richie wiggles forward a bit, still on his back, he uses an outstretched arm to press a pointed finger into Eddie’s butt. He continues to poke him.

Eddie doesn’t ignore him for long. He picks his head up and twists around so he can look at Richie directly.

“Are you poking me?” 

“No,” Richie says but there’s a smile coming onto his face. 

“I think you are lying.” 

Richie uses the same hand to slip underneath Eddie's shirt and press a palm flat against the very bottom of his back. The skin is warm. It makes Richie want to feel more of it. Richie grabs Eddie by the fabric of his shirt and abruptly yanks him backward. Eddie doesn’t resist. He lets go of the binder and it topples to the floor as Richie rolls on top of him. 

“Wanna fuck?” Richie breathes, leveling their faces and looking Eddie in the eye. Eddie smirks at him. 

Eddie doesn’t even reply, he simply reaches in between them and starts to undo Richie’s jeans. 

Richie smiles at him. 

-

It’s on the drive home the next day that Richie fully realizes it.

Eddie’s sleeping with his cheek smashed against the car window and his arms loosely crossed over his chest. There’s even a little bit of drool collecting in the corner of his mouth. When Richie sees him like that, he almost slams on the breaks. 

Then he starts to feel sick.

After the truck is parked in Eddie’s driveway, Richie stares at him for a long time before he works up the strength to lean over to shake him awake. When Eddie comes to- he’s dazed and disoriented- and then he sees Richie. 

The way he smiles is so warm and effortless that Richie is unable to speak. He’s rendered silent, staring at Eddie, seeing colors he’d never seen before. 

Eddie’s looking back into him, his smile slips a little and he asks, 

“What’s wrong?” 

It makes Richie wonder what kind of expression he’s wearing. 

He shakes his head and leans back in his seat. His heart’s pounding. Eddie chases him, touching his arm, then his neck, finally his cheek. Their kiss is made up of sweets and Richie’s never really had a favorite food but the taste of Eddie probably comes pretty close to it.

When Eddie pulls back, he does a brief scan of Richie’s face and then gets out of the car. 

Richie feels like he’s on fire.


	21. Richie

Richie and his father are sitting in the living room. 

It’s the first time they’ve sat in the same room together in weeks and Richie feels weird about it. He doesn’t really know why he feels weird about it, or what that even means, but there’s something unsettling about the lack of sound in the air.

So Richie says what’s on his mind. 

“I was thinking about going to Pent.” 

His father slowly turns his head to look at him. He stares into Richie’s face for a long time; long enough to lay cracks in the expression Richie’s hosting. Eventually, he sighs. 

“That’s quite far away. It would be expensive.” 

Richie knows that and he also knows that going to school just to stay close to Eddie is probably extremely stupid. But he can’t help but want that. He can’t help but want that very badly.

“My grades are pretty good so there’s always financial aid and-” 

“What’s wrong with Nore? You’re not even sure about what you want to do yet.” 

“There’s- I just-” Richie starts to feel a little choked up under the scrutiny of his father’s thumb. 

Suddenly the walls feel taller and the room feels darker. Suddenly the press of his father’s thumb hurts and staying here for another four years doesn’t sound as good as it used too. 

“You said you’d commute. I’d like to see you keep your word. Besides, your actions this year have me worried. I don’t know if I feel comfortable just letting you go off on your own like that.” 

Richie feels a coolness open up into him and touch even the warmest parts.

He does not argue with his father. 

-

May and Angie are both juniors in a high school that specializes in performing arts. Angie plays the violin and May makes sculptures out of trash she finds on the street. 

May makes other stuff too. But Richie thinks ‘trash sculptures’ has to be one of the coolest hobbies he’s ever heard of.

May’s artwork is being featured in a museum a couple of towns over from her school. She announces this during dinner at Uncle E’s a couple nights before the exhibition and invites them all to come. 

After May’s declaration, Eddie slides a cautious glance in Richie’s direction, as if he’s checking to make sure Richie hadn’t tapped out.

“The more people that turn up, the better I look. So Eddie, Richie I expect your asses to be there,” May says looking between the two of them while shoving a french fry into Quinton’s mouth. Quinton almost chokes on it. 

Eddie scoots about an inch closer to Richie so that their legs touch. He opens his mouth to respond, but Richie beats him to it. 

“We’ll be there,” Richie says. He feels Eddie’s eyes on him, but he keeps his gaze trained forward and settles for brushing their fingers together under the table. 

They're supposed to dress nice- business casual nice- so Richie wheres a button-up and a pair of dark-colored jeans. He’s never owned slacks and ties make his neck itch.

When Richie pulls up to the curb in front of Eddie’s house, he finds that Eddie is wearing something very similar. 

Eddie exits the house and Richie pays close attention to the bounce under his heel as he makes his way down the driveway and over to Richie’s truck. Richie’s breathing hitches. 

Eddie looks nice. 

The museum is a lot bigger than the one they went to all those months ago. It’s made up of three different buildings and about a million different rooms. It’s extremely easy to get lost in.

They’re supposed to meet Ben and Quinton in the west building at seven pm sharp. But apparently Richie never learned which direction west is in and after he stirs them down the wrong hallway for the second time, Eddie ends up trying to navigate them. 

As it turns out, Eddie is also unaware of which direction west is in. They get lost a few more times, once in a room of flower sculptures and then again in a room where the walls look like melted wax. 

They finally turn up in the right spot about twenty minutes after they said they would. But neither of them are too concerned about it. Ben and Quinton arrive five minutes after they do.

May gets a whole room to herself and Richie was completely oblivious to how incredible she is. 

There are things in her collection that he’d never seen anything remotely similar to before. Things that look thrown together yet arranged with such precision and skill that it almost seems otherworldly. He spends the most time out of the four of them, just staring, observing what May’s offering to him. 

Afterward, he looks at May differently. There’s a new sense of respect that chips away at any doubt he’s ever had about her.

He looks at May and he wants to be like her. 

He wants to make things the way she does. 

“You’re amazing,” Richie tells her after finding her standing alone near a table of pamphlets. She immediately turns her attention towards him and smiles. 

“Thanks,” she says and Richie figures she must have heard that about a million times today but he wonders if anyone meant it the way he does. “Eddie told me that you’re an artist too.”

Richie shrugs, “not like you.” 

May shakes her head, “my number one rule is don’t compare yourself to others.” 

“That’s a good rule in theory but-” 

“But nothing. Don’t overthink it; that only junks up the creative process” 

Richie just kind of stares at her. 

“Eddie also said that you don’t like art,” she continues.

Richie shrugs, “it’s not that I don’t like it- but sometimes I just don’t see the point in it.” 

May laughs at that. 

“Richie there is no point. I make art because I want too- because I have so much shit going on inside of me that stapling trash together is the only way it makes sense sometimes,” she tells him, scanning over his face. “What about you? How does it feel when you make art?” 

“It feels-” Richie starts, “good.” 

“Isn’t that enough?” 

It should be.

-

Richie finds an exit just outside May’s gallery and steps out into the dark before the show even ends. The exit leads onto a small patio connecting the west building to the main one. He finds the quiet of the night to be a little overwhelming. He takes a couple of steps away from the door and presses his back against the brick of the building. 

He can’t help but think about what he would look like if he were in May’s position. Richie has had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that there can be a reward in making art, but seeing May smile like that and find success like that- he can’t help but rethink everything. 

No matter how rational he tries to be- he wants what May has.

He wants to show people what’s inside of him. 

He wonders if that makes him narcissistic. May doesn’t seem like a narcissist- but doesn’t an artist have to be? You really have to believe in what you're doing to be able to put yourself out there like that.

Maybe it isn’t narcissism, maybe it’s confidence. 

He’s too occupied mauling over this shit to realize that Eddie has stepped out onto the patio with him. It’s not until he feels fingers pressing into his side that he notices Eddie standing there.

“What are you thinking about?” Eddie asks. When Richie looks at him, he finds that every soft edge in Eddie’s face is turned out; and the dingy lamppost to the left of them isn’t doing Eddie the justice in bringing all that softness forward. 

“I’m thinking about what it would be like if I was May,” Richie says truthfully because he doesn’t find it necessary to lie. That is what he’s thinking about. 

“Not sure if blonde would suit you.”

“Not what I meant.” 

“I know.” 

There’s a bit of silence that fills in as Eddie steps in front of Richie and turns his face up to look at him properly.

“You’re just as good as her,” Eddie says so firmly it’s like there’s not a doubt in his mind. 

“No-” 

“Yes, Richie,” he argues, pushing the weight from his voice up into his eyes.

Richie sighs softly and glances down to watch the tip of his shoe into the pavement. He shoves his hands in his pockets and lets his shoulders slump.

“I do like art, you know?” he mumbles. 

“I know,” Eddie responds.

“But I don’t know- I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it.” 

“You don’t have to know Richie. I just want to see you stop denying yourself. Stop thinking you don’t deserve it or that you’re not good enough, for whatever reason. You need to stop being afraid of yourself.”

Richie looks up at him and there’s a glint in Eddie’s eye that causes an uproar to take place inside of him. He breathes out, then in again, and out. Richie nods. 

Eddie takes a step closer and kisses him.

-

There’s a day where Richie’s the first person to arrive at their lunch table and for some reason, in the eyes of Henry Bowers, the number of empty seats is an invitation for him sit down across from Richi.

“The fuck?” Richie spits, channeling every molecule of disgust in his body. 

Henry smiles grossly at him in return. 

“I’ve taken up a new hobby,” he says, leaning back in his chair, the dirt in his grin blackening. 

“Kicking puppies isn’t doing it for ya anymore?

“I’ve actually found that I’ve got a knack for photography.” 

“I’m surprised you know how to turn on a camera.” 

“Shit Richie, anyone ever tell you you should be a comedian? That’s some real funny shit.” 

“Why the fuck are you still sitting here?” 

“Just wanted to speak to my muse is all.” The way Henry says it and the way the devil seems to have infiltrated his expression, causes Richie to freeze up. 

“What?” he asks but Henry’s already standing up. He shrugs and the smugness in his face shakes Richie to his core. “Henry,” he says strong enough for Henry to pause and look back at him. 

“Nice knowing you,” Henry says and then walks away. 

-

Richie gets home from Eddie’s house a little later than he thought he would and he doesn’t expect his dad to be awake but when he walks into the living room, his dad’s sitting there, in his recliner. 

“Hi,” Richie says as a strange tension slams into him. 

“Hi,” his dad mimics before he stands and takes a few long strides in Richie’s direction. He stops once they’re standing in front of each other.

“What-” Richie starts to say but then his dad is pulling out his phone and handing it to him. 

When Richie looks down at the screen, there’s a picture of him and Eddie kissing on it.

When he swipes, there are more pictures of he and Eddie kissing. 

His dad does not look very happy about it. 

Richie doesn’t think he’s ever looked so strange. 

“Do you have anything to say?” his dad asks in such a dangerously calm voice that Richie has to hold in a shutter. 

“Uh-” Richie says, because no, he doesn’t really have anything to say. 

Then it’s endgame and after Richie’s been sitting on the floor for twenty minutes his dad says, 

“If I ever see that kid again, I’ll fucking kill him.” 

And the way his dad says it is almost enough for Richie to open his mouth and do something about it. Instead, he remains still and breathes, trying to tune out the hard eyes staring down at him. 

“I can’t fucking believe you,” his dad says and then he leaves the room. 

Richie sits on the floor for a long time. 

-

When Monday rolls around, Richie doesn’t go to school and he doesn’t answer Eddie texts. 

He’s not sure why, he just doesn’t.

He does go on Tuesday and the first thing to happen that morning is Henry giving him the biggest, ugliest grin his face knows how to hold. Richie doesn’t even have it in him to acknowledge the guy. 

Then later in the hallway, Richie sees Eddie before Eddie sees Richie.

Richie stands on the opposite side of the hallway, watching Eddie talk to Ben with a soft expression on his face and a precalculus book cradled in one arm. The conversation doesn’t look very serious so when Ben slightly turns and catches Richie staring at them, he points it out. 

When Eddie’s eyes land on Richie, his features instantly twist into something less civil and he immediately marches over. Richie turns his face away. 

“Richie what the fuck?” he says, “you ignored me all weekend.” 

Richie blinks at the floor, “Sorry,” he says, sounding smaller than intended. There’s a beat of silence. 

“Richie look at me.” 

Richie continues to stare at his shoes until he can put it off no longer. Finally, he and his busted lip look up at Eddie. 

Eddie’s face melts as if he’d just been shoved in a fireplace. 

Richie shakes his head and looks away. 

“We can talk about it later,” Eddie says quietly.

Richie doesn’t want to talk about it later. He doesn’t want to talk about it at all. 

Eddie reaches for his hand and when Richie doesn’t comply, Eddie settles for wrapping his fingers across the back of his hand and squeezing. As much as Richie pretends that it isn’t, he would be lying if he said it wasn’t comforting. 

During lunch, Beverly finds their table and sits down at the empty seat next to Richie’s. Everyone stares at her like she’s from a different planet and when Richie faces her, her eyes go wide. 

“The fuck happened to you?” 

“I ran into a door.” he replies. 

“Idiot,” she says and then turns her attention to Bill and Ben who have been gawking at her ever since she sat down. 

“I would like to formally apologize to the both of you for homewrecking your friendship,” she says with a firm nod, looking pleased with herself. They continue to stare at her. “I would also like to apologize to Eddie for being a shitty friend.” 

“Where’s this coming from?” Richie asks. 

“I’m just trying to right my wrongs and get my shit together.” 

“You think a lousy apology is going to right your wrongs?” Eddie asks, watching her closely, his eyes narrowed and his lips pulling down at the edges. Beverly blows a few stray hairs out of her eyes and turns to address him directly. 

“What else can I do? You want a fucking essay?” 

“An essay would be nice.” Bill chimes in. He looks partly amused.

“Yeah call it, “Even Whores can be Remorseful,” Ben adds. 

“Oh shut up,” Beverly says through an eye roll. She stands, “I’ve said my peace, make what you will with it,” then she walks away. 

“You think she means it?” Ben asks. 

“Yeah,” Richie says, “she wouldn’t have wasted her time coming over here if she didn’t” 

“She’s not very good at being sincere.” Eddie comments. Richie shrugs. 

He knows better than anyone that emotions are hard sometimes. 

-

Richie doesn’t invite Eddie to his truck but as soon as he puts the keys into the ignition, Eddie’s there, tapping on his window. 

Richie unlocks the door and Eddie climbs in. 

“Hi,” Eddie squeaks. 

“Hello,” Richie says lowly, keeping his eyes trained on the dust coating his dashboard. 

“So- are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Richie says. He knows Eddie’s looking for more than that, but it’s hard for him. 

“Okay” 

-

His dad has gone back to not speaking to him and Richie’s been feeling really rough lately. 

He and Eddie don’t talk about what happened for a couple of weeks. Richie’s bruises fade, but the heaviness in his chest never lightens up. 

He’s been thinking about a lot of things lately and maybe there’s some stuff that he’d like to say out loud. Maybe his main problem stems from his inability to put that kind of stuff into words. Or maybe it’s just embarrassing.

His dad still hasn’t lifted the restrictions from when he was arrested. He hasn’t been allowed to leave the house other than for school and work. But occasionally Richie will sneak out after dark to stow away in Eddie’s bedroom, under his blankets. 

Tonight is one of those nights. But it feels different than usual. There’s something different in the way his thoughts are being held down. It’s almost like his mind has opened up and the urge to say something has taken shelter in its weak parts.

He supposes it’s only human nature to talk about the things that are bothering him. 

He lays on Eddie’s chest and lets Eddie hold him close. 

“My dad- found out about me and you- and since you’re a dude- that’s why-” he stutters, his words at a low rumble against Eddie’s collarbone. It’s strange to hear his own voice sound like this. “I was- he does it because he cares about me. I know he does. He loves me... you know?”

“I know Richie, I know,” Eddie says, smoothing Richie’s curls down with the palm of his hand. 

“And sometimes I wish he wasn’t like that but I do understand- I was such a little shit growing up and he was just doing his best- I’m surprised he didn’t kick my teeth out.” 

Eddie lets the silence fill in- like he’s trying to choose his next words with the utmost precision. 

“You know it isn’t normal, right?” he asks. Richie’s grip around Eddie’s waist tightens. 

“Yeah, but-”

“What if- what if my mom was hitting me? What would you think?” 

“That’s different,” Richie says, firmness spreading all the way down into his throat 

“But it’s not, Rich-” 

“It is,” Richie interrupts, rooting the words into Eddie’s chest like he’s planting trees. “You aren’t like me.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Eddie says and there’s a shake of what almost sounds like frustration in his voice. It keeps Richie quiet. Eddie sighs a little and moves his hand up so that it’s on Richie’s cheek, cradling Richie to his body.

“You are not the problem Richie.” he says pushing away the shake and replacing it with steel, causing his words to hit harder. “He’s the one that’s wrong. You’re smart Richie. I know you have to understand that.” Eddie’s got his free hand balled into Richie’s shirt and he pulls him in until their taut against each other and there’s nowhere else to go. 

Richie does understand. He’s always understood that, always known it was wrong no matter how many ways he could justify it. He loves his father; and that only makes it harder for him to face the fact that he’s also terrified of him. 

“I do.” he whispers.

“I get that it’s complicated, really I do, but I- want you to be safe. I want you to be okay-” 

“I am okay. I’ll always be okay.” 

“But you’re not,” Eddie says and he’s crying. “Let me help you.” 

Richie’s crying now too. 

“Okay.” 

-

Richie isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do now but he’s been on Pent’s website for the last two hours with his thumb over the ‘enroll’ button, just stalling- waiting- for what- he doesn’t know. They make it so simple nowadays, all he has to do is hit a few buttons and he’s a college student. 

He is petrified. 

He throws his phone on the floor. 

Richie gets out of bed and goes over to his desk where he sits down and stares at his sketchbook until his vision goes fuzzy. Eventually, he opens it up to a random page, grabs a pen and goes to town. 

Nothing on the page makes sense but it makes him feel better and clears some of the clutter from his brain. 

He draws until the white of the paper is no longer noticeable and when that occurs, he shoves it aside and rummages around for some looseleaf. He finds his old sophomore biology notebook hidden under a pile of scrap paper and tears a piece from it. He lays it out in front of him, runs a hand across it and stares down. 

Then he starts to write. 

He writes down all the feelings he has about his dad and about- everything- and when the page is full, he grabs another and then another. When he has four pages full of a mental downpour that would probably make no sense to anyone but him, he crumbles them up and throws them in the trash. 

He rips out one more piece of paper and then titles it, 

Dear dad,

Then he writes a letter to his father. 

In the letter he tells his father that he will be going to school three hours away and that he will be living in an apartment with a boy that he cares about a lot. He tells his father that there is nothing he can do about it. 

He writes about his love for his father and how it’s made him weak. How he can’t stand up for himself anymore. He writes about why being treated this way isn’t normal. He writes about all the reasons he can come up with to make the behavior normal. 

He asks questions and asks for reasons. He tries not to hide anything, not like he would if they were face to face. 

When the last sentence is written, he folds the paper and stands up. 

He knows he’ll lose the courage if he doesn’t deliver the letter this instant, so he takes the paper in his hands and travels through the hallway and into his dad’s bedroom. He stands in front of his father’s bed for a few long minutes before he hesitantly leaves it on his pillow. 

Richie’s heart is pounding when he returns to his room. He finds his phone on the floor and brings up the college website where he finally hits the enroll button. 

He thinks about running back in there and ripping the letter up into a million pieces about four times. But once he hears the garage door and footsteps coming up the stairs, he knows there’s no going back. 

He gets in his bed and hides under his blankets, pretending to be asleep, waiting for his dad to knock on the door. 

But that never happens and Richie falls asleep feeling something he’s never felt before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I made an Instagram for my artwork a few weeks ago and I’ve been debating on giving it out to you guys for a couple of days now. I’m only hesitant because this means my identity will be revealed and even though it is unlikely that I know any of you from real life I’m still a little reluctant because I’d like to keep the whole gay fanfiction thing under wraps, you know? So if you all would be so kind to be respectful of that, that would be awesome. I mainly want to share this with you guys because Richie’s experience with art is very similar to my own and I imagine his art style to closely resemble mine. I also think giving this story some visual representation would be something very unique and cool. That being said, this is me @gabrielle.rossetti 
> 
> If you know me, please pretend you don’t. 
> 
> Thank you and goodnight.


	22. Eddie

Today is Eddie’s last day of high school.

If someone created a time machine and traveled through the intergalactic tunnel of space and time to Eddie’s last day of sixth grade and told his prepubescent self that this is how he’d finish off his high school career, he’d probably be majorly confused. 

If they programmed the machine to go back to the last day of eighth grade to tell his slightly less prepubescent self the same thing, he might be a little less confused. 

Nonetheless, telling a boy he’ll end his senior year in love with the kid who tormented him for the majority of his childhood will indefinitely spark some confusion. 

But the Eddie from this day and age; the Eddie who is eighteen years old and has lived through all of that, plus some, is not confused. He is not confused about his feelings for Richie. 

No one would blame him if he was. Richie was very mean to him. A lot of people in Eddie’s position wouldn’t even think twice about someone with Richie’s long list of credentials. 

But it is Eddie who is in Eddie’s position. And Eddie has always seen Richie in layers.

Richie was brought up wrong. And when a child is taught something, especially by a parent, they will generally be influenced by it. So he was influenced by it. That’s just how it was. And when he realized he was wrong, he changed it. 

Undoing the structure of what a person is built from, can be a very difficult thing to do. Eddie thinks that says more about him than anything else. 

On the last day of Eddie’s senior year of high school, he arrives ten minutes late because his mother has him star in a photoshoot at the end of their driveway. 

“Don’t you want to be able to look back on this day and remember it?” she had asked. 

He responded with,

“not really,” 

which then prompted a spiel about the importance of capturing memories and looking back on the past to remember its ‘essence '. 

Whatever that’s supposed to mean. 

Eddie’s not usually one to look back on the past. Sure, the past can be helpful sometimes. In history, they teach you that turning to the past for guidance can help you avoid making the same mistake twice. Eddie understands that. But otherwise, he thinks looking back is often useless. 

The past is unchangeable. It’s already happened. All you’re really doing is distracting yourself from the present and that’s an unproductive thing to do.

Eddie’s aware that what his mother is trying to do is not that deep.

Arriving ten minutes late to an exam is just as terrible as he thought.

When he walks in, he easily becomes the loudest movement in the whole room. So naturally, all eyes direct to him as he makes his way over to the teachers desk to shamefully hand her his late slip.

The attention on him dwindles after he takes a seat in an empty desk. He starts the final fifteen minutes after everyone else. 

He’s one of the last students to finish and that’s always a bummer. 

Honestly, he’d probably categorize finishing last and finishing first on the same metric scale of bummism. 

Finishing first is a bummer because it either means that you’re a smart asshole or an idiot who didn’t even try. Finishing last is a bummer because it either means you’re an idiot who tried too hard or a smart asshole who also tried too hard. You can’t win. 

After the exam is over, students are free to leave the classroom. This helps to soften the blow that often hits when coming in last place. At least there’s no one around to see the shame of turning in the last test.

Eddie doesn’t have another exam until just before lunch so he hangs out in the library and tries to read a book about meditation. 

He’d like to be more into that kind of stuff. But partway through the third page, he is so bored he can hardly stand it. 

Then Ben waltzes through the entrance with a lazy kick to his stride. He takes a second to glance around before he spots Eddie and makes his way over. 

He pulls out a chair but he doesn’t sit down in it. Instead, he uses it to prop his leg up. Then he leans in so he's inches away from Eddie’s face and says nothing as he stares down into Eddie’s eyes. 

“You know, chairs are used to sit in” Eddie comments as he raises his eyebrows. 

“There’s no time for sitting,” Ben replies, continuing to hold Eddie’s gaze with a weird expression on his face.

“Why do you look like that?” Eddie asks as he pushes away the rejected means of peace in one final shove. The book slides across the table. 

“Quinton’s senior class prank is having everyone bring their dog to school.” 

“Okay?”

“He asked if you’d like to bring Scout.” 

“I don’t go to Hoover.” 

“Precisely why he invited you. He told us to wear Perth pride if we’ve got it.” 

Eddie sighs. 

“Come on, we can go after your English final.” 

“Ben-” 

“Richie’s driving.” 

Eddie gives Ben this look. 

He’d prefer it if Ben wouldn’t assume that just because Richie’s involved Eddie will automatically be swayed. 

“Fine,” Eddie mumbles. 

There’s no actual proof that the mention of Richie’s name influenced his decision. He never said no, meaning the comment never changed his mind. 

Either way, it’s rude to make assumptions.

A smug look comes onto Ben’s face and Eddie wants to punch him. 

He sighs loudly instead. 

It may be obnoxious, but it’s better than violence. 

“I don’t like the way you're looking at me,” Eddie says with his nose turned up.

“What? Like I know how whipped you are?”

“He’s the whipped one,” Eddie grumbles, pulling on his fingers.

“Sure,” Ben says.

-

The English final lasts forever. At least that’s what it feels like as Eddie sits there scribbling squares on the back of his test. 

Richie’s at the desk to the right of him, also scribbling on the back of his own test. 

Eddie eventually gives up on the squares after they start to morph into ovals. He decides to just sit back and watch Richie instead. 

Richie looks more concentrated on the mass of lines he’s laying down than he did when he was taking the final. His body is curled in a crescent around his desk and his head hangs so low, Eddie can barely see his face. He is completely zoned out. Like even plane dipping into the side of the building wouldn’t shake him of his trance. 

Watching him like that is something Eddie tries not to take for granted.

Talent seems like such a rare thing to come by. Eddie knows that there’s nothing in him like that. And he’s envious just the same as he is proud. Maybe a little sad too. 

He refuses to ignore the way Richie had been turned inside out. Watching how he struggled like that, makes Eddie feel as if he better understands how complex people can be. How complex Richie can be.

Richie neglected a part of him for a very long time and that’s always been fascinating to Eddie. Almost in a way that makes him feel shameful. There were days he felt like watching Richie find his footing was some kind of entertainment. Always left wondering what Richie’s next move would be. What’s he going to say? What’s he going to do?

But that’s just life. People watch people. If you care about someone, you’re going to watch them. You can intervene as much as they’ll let you but when it comes down to it, watching is all you really can do. 

Eddie couldn’t have been happier to watch Richie find his way.

And now he’s allowed to watch him in moments like this. 

It’s nice. 

At some point, Richie does come out of it. 

He straightens, blinks a few times and then looks over at Eddie. He smiles, and there’s something so warm and lazy about the way his lips pull around his teeth that Eddie can’t help but smile back. 

Together, they leave Perth high school for the last time as high school students and Eddie allows himself some of the ache people feel when they leave something behind. Even if it is just high school.

When they finally turn up to Richie’s truck, they find Ben checking himself out in one of the side mirrors. 

“Seeing if you're still ugly?” Eddie remarks as they come within speaking distance. Ben jumps about a foot in the air before he whirls around. Then he’s trying to mask his embarrassment with this smugness that’s never been very natural to him.

“N-no I’m just making sure- that I don’t look like you- because that would be embarrassing.” His features try on something complacent but it doesn’t quite fit his face. 

Eddie watches Richie shake his head as he unlocks the truck and pops the door open. 

“That’s a stupid thing to say. It’s obvious Eddie’s better looking than both of us.” Richie counters, his voice hanging low as he glances from Ben over to Eddie. 

Eddie starts to smile and Ben rolls his eyes. 

“Aw-” Eddie starts but Ben cuts him short.

“Awwww babe you’re so sweet!” he pitches his tone higher and bounces over to Richie. He takes Richie’s arm and hugs into the side of his body. 

It is very apparent that he is mocking Eddie. 

Richie shakes him off with a sigh and climbs into his truck, situating himself behind the wheel. 

“I don’t talk like that,” Eddie grumbles pushing past Ben so he can circle around to the passenger seat. 

“Maybe not in public but I know who you really are,” Ben says once everyone's in the vehicle. 

“You don’t know shit.” 

“Don’t hurt my feelings.” Ben mopes. 

“Don’t be a pussy.” 

They swing by Eddie’s place to pick up Scout.

Eddie didn’t think about how he doesn’t own a leash until Ben says something about it. Scout has never needed a leash. He usually does what he’s told. 

Except for that week he ran away and honeymooned at Richie’s. Even then, it wasn’t enough to make Eddie feel the need to purchase a leash.

“Scout you got to be on your best behavior.” 

Scout pants in response. 

Eddie thinks about how cute he looks with his tongue hanging out of his mouth like that. He snakes his front half into the back seat and kisses him on the forehead. 

“What about me?” Ben asks. 

“My bad,” Eddie says, reaching across the center console to punch Ben in the knee.

“You are mean,” Ben mutters rubbing at the shadow of Eddie’s fist. 

“Don’t ask for things you don’t deserve.” 

“Oh like that guy deserves your kisses?” Ben says pointing at the back of Richie’s head. 

“If I hear your whiny ass complain one more time, you’re walking,” Richie says slipping a glare through the rearview mirror and into Ben’s line of sight. 

Ben huffs in response as he pats Scout on the head. 

“It’s all unfair,” he whispers barely loud enough to be heard. 

Eddie and Richie both roll their eyes. 

When they pull into Hoover’s parking lot it is very obvious what is going on. 

The busing circle is full of K9’s. 

Once they’re out of the truck, there’s a full choir of howling that greets them. Scout doesn’t hesitate to let his own voice join them.

They make their way over and Eddie has to call Scout back a few times to keep him at their pace. It takes a lot of obedience for a dog to resist the temptation of a pack. Eddie is inflated with a sense of pride. Scout is a good dog.

They don’t find Quinton until ten minutes after they enter the chaos of the K9 circle. 

There are so many dogs to admire that they don’t mind feeling a little out of place. And there’s far too much commotion for anyone to notice or care about an unfamiliar face. 

Eddie lowers into a crouch so he can introduce himself to a pomeranian. The pomeranian acknowledges him with a bark pitched much higher than Scouts could ever be. He smiles at the small dog and scratches at the side of its head. 

When he looks up, Richie’s watching him. They smile at each other. The moment is warm.

Then Quinton appears out of thin air and shouts something into Richie’s ear. Richie recoils as if he’d been bitten by a bug and then follows up by giving Quinton a nasty look. Quinton ignores him as his attention darts down to Scout. 

“My boy,” he says dropping his hand in offering. Scout obliges and licks his fingers. 

Hoover is a far more reputable school than Perth is, meaning they’ve got a festival-type celebration going on behind their school.

Like in the movie Grease.

Except there’s no Ferris wheel, just a few food trucks and some fair games lined down the perimeter of the lawn. 

Eddie had no idea this was a thing school’s actually did. Perth is so foreign to the concept of fun that seeing a school offer its students something other than a standardized test, happens to be a little refreshing. 

After another thirty minutes of petting dogs and a brief meeting with Quinton’s ‘school’ friends, they migrate to the football field where the end of the school year commemoration is being held. 

Ben and Richie are also looking a little uncomfortable over the fact that this school is encouraging its students to throw darts and eat caramel apples. 

They end up doing exactly those things. Throwing darts and eating caramel apples. 

Although, Eddie does have to force the speared apple into Richie’s possession being that his first reaction is to refuse it. 

Once Richie's fingers are securely wrapped around the stick, he holds the apple at a distance and stares at it. 

“Stop staring, you’re making it self conscious.” Eddie eventually says after they’ve circled the entire sight and Richie has managed to keep the whole apple in tack. 

“I hate apples.” 

“But this apple is covered in caramel.” 

Richie sighs. He gives the apple one final look as if he’s offering his condolences before he takes a chunk out of its side. He makes a few different faces as he chews it slow, then he swallows in finality. Eddie enjoys watching the way his expression changes.

Richie grimaces and then sighs again. 

“I hate caramel apples,” he says before he stretches an arm into Eddie’s vicinity, implying that Eddie should take the apple. Eddie grabs it and instantly brings it to his mouth to take a bite. His bite turns into a mouthful and Richie smiles at him as he struggles to get it down. 

“Your taste buds are busted, this is delicious.” 

“Richie’s just busted person,” Ben says bouncing up to Eddie. He catches Eddie’s hand, the one holding the caramel apple, and steers it towards his face so he can also take a bite. 

“Manners,” Eddie scolds, a little surprised by the sudden movement. 

Ben eats almost half the apple in one bite, “Jesus Ben.” 

“Us ex-fatties know how to eat,” Ben says after he lodges the ridiculously sized piece down his throat. He then glances over to show Eddie the serious glint in his eyes.

“Do you ever miss being fat?” Quinton asks. 

“All the time. Worrying about what I’m eating sucks.” 

“Then just be fat again,” Richie says simply. 

“I’ll be fat again once you start being an asshole again.” 

Eddie watches the softness in Richie’s face turn harder.

“Being fat has its perks but I feel better this way,” Ben says continuing to stare at Richie. “Just like being an asshole probably has its perks but I’m sure you feel better this way too.” 

“Yeah,” Richie says curtly. 

“Lighten up Rich, I’m just messing around.”

Eddie knows better than anyone else that Richie doesn’t like thinking about the way he used to act. 

It makes him embarrassed. 

Eddie gets it. 

“I know,” Richie mumbles. Then the moment ends and Quinton is grabbing Ben by the arm and yanking him over to ring toss. 

Eddie’s never cared for fairs. The food is nice but he doesn’t really like rides and he’s terrible at carnival games. 

Richie, on the other hand, has been tearing it up. 

He’s won an abundance of toy plushies. And as his collection grows, his capacity to hold them, declines. Eddie offers to help but Richie just shakes his head. Before too long, he starts handing them out to random strangers. 

Once he’s left holding only a red dragon sewn together by a reflective pair of wings he looks over at Eddie. 

He reaches out and nudges the dragon into Eddie’s arm. 

“For you,” he says. 

Eddie stares down at it. Then he takes it. 

“Thank you,” he responds, “I will cherish him for eternity.” 

“He will appreciate that.” 

“Does he have a name?” 

“Harold.” 

“Harold?” Eddie gasps. He thinks that’s a silly name for a dragon.

“It was the first name that came to mind.” 

“Okay- Harold it is.” 

Eddie scarfs down a corn dog and by the time Richie’s plushie collection has been reimbursed, Quinton and Ben are about ready to leave. 

In the parking lot, Ben decides to hitch a ride with Quinton. 

Before Eddie climbs back into Richie’s truck, Ben pulls him into a hug. 

“This is the last time we’ll see each other as high schoolers.”

“You’re so sentimental.” Eddie pokes, but he’s smiling. He hugs Ben back. 

Richie’s scheduled to work in an hour so he drives Eddie and Scout home. On the way there, Richie blares music Eddie’s never heard before. It’s difficult to have a conversation under such a heavy beat, so they don’t. They don’t have to. 

Since the very first time Eddie’s ridden in a car with Richie, he’s always caught himself watching Richie’s hands. There’s just something so careful about the way his fingers glide over the wheel.

He has these big and steady hands that would generally make for an unusual combination but really only adds contrast to the gentle way he treats the things he comes into contact with. 

Eddie can’t help but be constantly be reminded of what it feels like to be touched by him. 

Once Richie parks, Scout hops out of the truck and runs down the driveway. 

Eddie grabs his backpack in one hand and secures Harold in the other before he leans in to kiss Richie on the cheek. It’s a silent ordeal and when it’s over, he starts to get out. 

“Eddie,” Richie says in a strange voice, instantly snagging Eddie’s attention.

Eddie’s halfway out of the truck when he pauses to look back. “Uh-” Richie stutters. “I just-” 

The way Richie trips over his words and the nervous way he fiddles with Eddie’s gaze leads Eddie to the staggering realization of what he’s trying to say.

Something about the moment really settles into Eddie. 

He really does feel it.

“You too, Richie,” Eddie says. 

The nerves in Richie’s expression start to dissipate and he offers up a small smile. 

“Yeah. Thank you.” 

Then Eddie closes the door and Richie drives away. 

Once inside, the first thing Eddie does is head into the pantry to reward Scout with a treat. Scout is very excited. He swallows the bacon bite as soon as it meets his tongue. This compels Eddie to say,

“How are you supposed to enjoy it if you don’t even chew it?” 

To which Scout only stares up at him and wags his tail.

Then he goes into his room before his mother can emerge from her office to pester him. 

He pops off his shoes, then his socks, then his pants and lays down in his bed. 

He debates over what to do. 

He messes around on his phone for a while, trying to decide whether it’s worth it or not to masturbate. 

It can turn into such a hassle. 

The clean up is just not enjoyable at all. And sometimes he just feels weird right after. Disgusted almost. He wonders if that’s a normal way to feel after jerking yourself off. Maybe he should ask Richie. 

He hasn’t really masturbated a lot since he started hanging out with Richie. Hasn’t really needed to. Richie’s pretty good at that kind of thing. Helping him- you know?

He really appreciates that about Richie. 

Inevitably, he starts thinking about Richie. 

The thought of Richie rolls in like a giant boulder, breaking through the membrane and crushing his brain. 

At first, he figures masturbating is probably the right move. But then his mind continues to wander and the fraction of him that had been feeling any hint of arousal at all, ends up being consumed.

He eventually comes to the realization that he already misses Richie. 

Then proceeds to become grossed out with himself. He saw Richie not even twenty minutes ago.

He had never planned on becoming like this.

He flips over and smashes his face into his pillow in attempts to hide from his own embarrassment. He then continues to pass out.

When he wakes up it’s three hours later and his mom is trying to get him up for dinner. 

“Oh Eddie if you nap now you won't be able to sleep tonight,” she tells him. It’s such a useless thing to say but it’s what he hears every time she catches him napping.

But he’s already slept the three hours away. There’s no taking it back now. 

She made a pot roast. 

It was pretty good. 

He eats it quickly as she tries to talk to him about college. 

“I wish you weren’t going so far away,” she says. He grunts a response while stuffing food into his mouth. “Are you excited?” 

He expels yet another grunt. 

She sighs. 

“Well I’m happy that you’re happy,” she says in a tone carefully fabricated in sincerity. Even under the fabrication, Eddie can still see that she’s at least trying to be happy for him. He guesses he’ll give her points for that. 

“I’m glad,” he replies. 

After dinner, he decides to go on a walk. He heads back up to his room to retrieve his dog but when he opens the door, he finds Scout snout-deep in Harold's intestines. 

“Scout,” he says, dragging his voice out. He’s never owned a stuffed animal at the same time he’s owned Scout. So there’s no possible way he could have known the dog has a taste for stuffing. 

Eddie sighs and shoos him away from Harold's remains. 

He picks up a trashcan and starts to dispose of Harold's leftover fluff. As he does so, he says a silent prayer. Harold deserves at least that much. 

Afterward, he forgives Scout and decides to take him on a walk anyways.

They both head out together. 

Eddie would like to pretend he’s going on this walk for the simplicity of the exercise but he and Scout both know where they’ll end up. 

In the Mike’s parking lot.

Twenty minutes later, they’re in the Mike’s parking lot. 

Eddie doesn’t expect Richie to be sitting on the curb of the sidewalk when he arrives, but that’s where he is. He’s looking at his shoes when Eddie walks up to him. 

“You aren’t still working?” Eddie asks abruptly. 

Obviously startled by Eddie’s presence, Richie jerks his head back and looks up. 

Once he sees that it’s Eddie standing there, the surprise on his face is replaced by something warm.

“When I told Rae it was my last day of school, he told me to leave.”

“That was nice of him.”

“Yeah...I’ve been sitting out here for almost an hour. I’ve been trying to decide on what I should do.” 

“You could have called me.” 

“Yeah but-” Richie cuts himself off like he’s changed his mind about what he wants to say. 

“What?” Eddie encourages. Richie does a double-take and on the second glance, he looks at Eddie more carefully. 

“Sometimes I think I’m being annoying.”

Eddie squints at him for a moment and then sighs. 

“You’re an idiot.” 

“Okay.” 

“Obviously I want to be around you,” Eddie says, moving to sit down next to him. 

“I know. Sometimes that’s just what I think. Even though I know it isn’t true.” 

“Well stop doing that,” Eddie says. He can’t help but think about how he thought they were over this. But at the same time, he knows what Richie’s feeling. That it’s really just his insecurities trying to manifest. He has that too sometimes. Everyone does. It’s just how humans are.

“I will.” 

At that moment, the way Richie looks at Eddie, just about knocks the wind out of him. There’s something about how Richie’s eyes gloss and his lips part that really gets to Eddie. It’s a little frustrating.

When he finally catches his breath he says,

“Scout kind of ate Harold while I was eating dinner.” 

Richie gasps. Then he glares down Scout who’s laying by their feet. 

“Scout you killer.” 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Richie says. “There will always be more carnivals games. Next time, I’ll win you a hundred Harnolds.” 

“I don’t know if I want a hundred Harnolds.” 

“Well, a hundred Harnolds is what you will receive.” 

“Okay.” 

Scout shifts an inch closer to Richie and it draws Eddie’s attention downward. He notices that there’s a creamed colored envelope lying on the blacktop next to Richie’s untied shoes. 

“What’s that?” 

“A letter from my dad.” 

Eddie’s quite for a moment as he stares at the envelope, forming a completely new perspective about this cream-colored envelope lying on the pavement.

He feels unsettled when he thinks about Richie’s father. 

“What does it say?”

“Not sure,” Richie says, his voice taking on a lighter tone. “I haven’t read it yet.” 

“Are you-” Eddie starts, but it’s still a weird topic of conversation and Eddie hates making Richie feel uncomfortable like that. He tries to only talk about it when Richie brings it up. “Scared?” 

Eddie has no idea why Richie’s father would write him a letter when they live in the same house. And he doesn’t know why Richie would be hesitant to read it unless he was scared of what it might say. 

The confusion on Eddie’s face must be apparent because Richie starts to explain. 

“Um...I don’t know if I’m scared. Maybe nervous.” he begins, “I wrote him a letter and told him that I’m going away for college and there’s basically nothing he can do to stop me. This is his response.” 

“Oh,” Eddie says and then he’s hit with a platter of different feelings. First relief greets him, then it’s followed by delight and topped off by a great big helping of fear. 

Eddie doesn’t know Richie’s father at all. And that makes it hard for him to gauge what kind of reaction the guy would have to this sort of thing. But if Eddie were to guess, it can’t be all that great. 

“Do you think he’s mad?” Eddie asks cautiously. 

“No,” Richie starts, “If he was mad I would have known it. I think-” he cuts himself off for a second and stares down at the envelope, “I think I made him sad.” 

‘Good’ Eddie thinks, he wants that guy to be sad. 

But now Richie’s looking kind of sad. 

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him because he’s not sure of what else to say. And it is okay. It’s okay for Richie to feel like this. All Eddie wants to do is hold him and have the thought sink deep within him.

Richie turns his face away for a moment but Eddie would rather keep that moment between them. He scoots closer and then dips his head onto Richie’s shoulder. Richie jerks a little from surprise but then he softens against him. 

Eddie’s lips brush the fabric of Richie’s shirt as Richie wraps an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer. 

“You’re really good at making me feel better.” 

“What? This isn’t making you feel worse?” Eddie mumbles against Richie’s neck. Eddie feels the vibrations of Richie’s laugh. Then he plants a kiss to the side of Eddie’s head. 

“You’re an idiot,” Richie says against his cheek. 

A little while later a herd of boys on bikes pull up a few feet away from where they’re sitting. Richie perks up as if he recognizes them. 

“Hey Richie,” one of them greets. 

“Sup Rafi,” Richie replies. Eddie then separates from Richie’s side, putting a little space between them. It’s hard to be completely comfortable acting like that in front of prepubescent boys who don’t quite have control of their tongues yet. “What are you guys up to?” 

“Oh you know-” Rafi says, looking back at his friends, “just picking up some Cheetos.” 

Rafi sounds unnecessarily suspicious, which makes it seem like Richie knows something that Eddie does not. 

Richie only nods as the boys ditch their bikes against the curb and waltz into the store. 

“Those are the kids who-” Richie cuts himself off to suddenly stand, “wow.” 

“What?” Eddie asks. 

Richie walks toward the cluster of bikes laying on the blacktop. He stops in front of Rafi’s blue razor and bends down to reach into its basket. He pulls out a lunchbox. 

Eddie catches the admiration on Richie’s face as he holds the lunchbox close and stares down at it. 

Eventually, Richie fully turns around and smiles at Eddie. 

He holds up the lunchbox. 

It’s the same lunchbox Richie took from him in the fourth grade. 

Eddie laughs. 

When the boys exit Mike’s, they freeze up after seeing Richie standing there, holding that lunchbox.

“Uh-” Rafi starts but Richie interrupts him.

“How much for the lunchbox?” 

“What?” Rafi asks, clearly confused.

“How much for the lunchbox?” Richie repeats. 

“It’s uh- not for sale.” 

“Twenty bucks.” Richie offers. Rafi blinks, opens his mouth then closes it again. Eddie can visibly see the gears turning as he goes over it in his head. 

“Thirty,” he finally says after a minute of silence. 

“But Rafi-” one of the boys starts to say. Rafi holds his hand up and replies with,

“Shut up.” 

“Fine,” Richie responds. He then pulls a twenty and a ten out of his pocket before walking over and stuffing it into Rafi’s hands. 

The boys stare at Richie as he steps back and then opens the lunchbox. 

There are a lot of tools inside. 

Richie laughs. 

“Can we-” Rafi starts to say with little confidence. 

“Here,” Richie says, flipping the lid completely over and presenting the box directly in front of Rafi. Rafi smiles nervously as he steps forward to collect the tools into his arms. 

“Thanks,” he responds. 

“No thank you,” Richie counters. 

Then Rafi and the boys are off, pedaling away on their bikes. Thirty dollars richer than they were a few moments ago.

Eddie continues to stare at Richie. 

Richie continues to stares at the lunchbox. 

“Those are the boys who always steal the apostrophe,” he explains gesturing to the signage above the store. 

Eddie doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he asks, 

“Why’d you do that?” 

Richie’s quiet for a second. 

“It’s gotta be a sign.” 

“A sign?”

Eddie shakes his head but a slight smile raises onto his lips. He’s not a very superstitious person. He wouldn’t have guessed Richie was either.

“Yeah, what are the chances we’d find another vintage lunchbox like this one.” 

“Okay.” Eddie says slowly, “a sign for what?” 

Richie goes quiet again and then his cheeks tint red. 

“I don’t know.” 

They stare at each other. 

Then Richie takes a couple of steps closer to where Eddie’s sat. He crouches down and with outstretched arms, he offers Eddie the lunchbox.

“Here,” Richie insists. 

“What?” Eddie asks. 

“Take it.” 

“But-” 

“Take it and if it really feels so wrong, we can reenact the event of me pushing you down and taking it from you.” 

Eddie snorts but eventually, he takes the lunchbox. 

“How does it feel?” Richie asks. 

“Like a lunchbox.” 

“I mean internally.” 

“Are my insides suppose to have a reaction to holding a lunchbox?” 

Richie sighs. 

“You can’t even play along huh?” 

“Okay okay sorry. Let’s start over. Ask me again.” 

“How does it feel?” Richie repeats. 

“Oh, Richie! I can feel your immortal love for me bursting from the cracks of this lunchbox as it pours into me! The sensation is so dizzying I think I may faint!” 

Richie laughs. 

“Asshole,” he says before he starts to lean in. At first, Eddie thinks he’s coming in for a kiss but then he shoves Eddie by the shoulder and swipes the lunchbox back into his own hands. “You don’t deserve my immortal love.” 

The action has Eddie aching with admiration. Richie’s cute sometimes. 

He smiles big and Richie returns it. 

“Thank you,” Eddie says more seriously. Richie’s expression dims. 

“Now we can both have one.”

Eddie reaches out to put his hand on Richie’s cheek. Richie softens against his touch. 

“I like that,” Eddie says. 

Then Richie really does lean in for a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was fun. 
> 
> I’d like to give everyone who made it here a big wet beautiful kiss because guess what?? ya’ll just read a book. Good job. Not many people read books anymore. 
> 
> It’s been an honor to have written this monster for all you lovely people. Your support has me constantly crying. Writing this fic has taught me so much and I’m forever grateful for this experience.
> 
> This will probably be my final Reddie fanfiction as I think it’s time to switch my focus onto more original content and continue to work on different projects. It makes me sad to say that because this is such a wonderful community to be apart of but a bitch gotta spread her wings. I hope to meet you again on some other site, in another story, in a different world. I love you.


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